


forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit

by fade_away



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: :), Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, M/M, Pining, bad language, i lov my boys, ronan wants adam so badly, theyre trainwrecks but theyre ok
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2019-08-02 02:40:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16296698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fade_away/pseuds/fade_away
Summary: hey, brief warning for alcohol dependency mentioned!





	1. Chapter 1

Ronan Lynch has always had nightmares. 

“It’s your father’s curse, too, lamb,” Aurora whispered to him once, after a long night of tossing and turning and crying and hyperventilating. She held him tight to her chest, as if she was scared that he’d drift away from her. “You’re more like him than you’ll ever know.”

When he was little, he would beg his mother to stay with him for _just one more_ minute, dreading the moment he finally sank into oblivion. There were periods where he would wake up with his rosary stuck to his cheek after falling asleep praying for hours on end that his dreams would stop, just for one night. Declan got tired of sharing a room with him when Ronan was only ten, because he cried out in his sleep.  
Ronan got his own bedroom. And he was alone.  
—

At some point, Ronan’s nightmares bled into his waking life. The overflow from his dreams desaturated them- they became significantly less vivid, the longer he carried them with him. And at first, it wasn’t even that he was seeing his dreams come to fruition so much as reliving them; dozing off in class and waking with a start just as Matthew’s face began to rot, or letting his mind wander during mass and being assaulted with visions of his own death, over and over and over. Anger and exhaustion filled his lungs. So Niall taught him to box. For once in his life, Ronan was fully understood; his father knew exactly what was happening to him and exactly what to do to help. 

“A tired body teaches an anxious mind to calm down,” Niall reasoned. He took Ronan to the Barns and taped his knuckles, showed him how to throw a hook and take a punch. Matthew couldn’t understand him and Declan didn’t try, so Niall Lynch became Ronan’s best friend in the world. Gradually, Ronan’s nightmares shrank back, back, back, until they were an afterthought as he drifted into a heavy sleep.  
—

“Dad?” Ronan tried one day, fiddling with the leather bands around his wrist. He was probably fourteen years old. Shame colored his cheeks red.

“Hm?” Niall looked up from the paperwork he was doing- even now, Ronan can still see the smile in his eyes. Despite his tough exterior, Niall Lynch was a remarkably soft hearted man. 

“Do you think God hates me?” As soon as the words were in the air, Ronan clapped a hand over his mouth. To his credit, Niall didn’t look shocked or angry. Instead, he turned to face Ronan, smile still in his eyes. 

“Son,” he started, resting his elbows on his knees. “What on earth would make you think God hated you?”

It was at this point that Ronan knew his father could read him like an open book. Quietly, so quietly, Ronan said, “Because I don’t like girls the way He wants me to?”

There was a long silence as Ronan waited for his father to yell, to curse, to kick him out of the house, but the blow never came. “The most important thing to God is love, Ronan. As long as you have love in your heart, He doesn’t care who it’s for- boys, girls, anyone in between- all He wants is for you to feel that love.”

Relief like he had never felt before pulsed through him. 

“Really?”

“Of course.” Niall went back to his paperwork, and the red faded from Ronan’s cheeks. 

“Hey, dad?”  
“Hm?”  
“Love you.”  
“Love you too, silly.”  
—  
Then, when he was just starting out at Aglionby, he found his dad in the driveway. No nightmare he’d ever had could compare to the sight of his father’s body, bloody and beaten, lying prone next to the BMW. Everything he’d ever dreamed of seemed so silly now, so mundane, but paradoxically worse, too. The nights he’d spent fending off his own demons rushed back, pushing against every available space in his brain. How many nights had his father spent fighting the same fights? How many nights had he spent afraid for his life, running from invisible monsters? And the worst, most infuriatingly devastating question; who could have possibly hated Niall Lynch enough to do this?  
Ronan heaved everything he had in his stomach into the roots of the plum trees his father had given so much love to. The first thing he did was check for a pulse; the next, dig around for his seldom-used cell phone and call 911. The anger and exhaustion of his youth filled his lungs again, and he desperately wished for one more chance to tell his father just how much he loved him. He hadn’t realized that he’d been howling until Declan was at his side, pulling him away from their father and wiping the tears and blood and puke from his face. The last thing he saw before the heavy front door closed in front of him was the red-blue-red-blue lights of the ambulance, steadily creeping up their long driveway.  
—

Now, Ronan can’t sleep. At least, not for more than an hour or so at a time. His bed at Monmouth is filled more with the stupid junk he pulled out of his dreams than anything else, and he is bitter for it. Gansey knows not to bother him, and Ronan knows that Gansey wants to help him more than anything in the world, more than he wants to find Glendower, more than he wants to kiss that wickedly smart girl, Blue. But the last time someone tried to help Ronan, they ended up dead, and he isn’t going to let that happen again.  
So it’s three in the morning and all he can think about is swallowing down his next breath. He’d woken up with blood in his mouth and on his pillow, too red, too salty. Unreal. Chainsaw has been rubbing her beak against his jaw and hopping around him in frantic circles for an hour, squawking loud enough to be heard over the shitty electronica blaring through his headphones. Noah has been flickering in and out, too- despite Ronan’s best efforts, keeping a literal ghost out of his room is near impossible. This night, inexplicably, has been worse than most. 

“Fuck off,” he snaps. Noah, who is loitering by the door, sighs. 

“This is... bad,” Noah says, shoulders bunched up around his ears. “I’m going to get Gansey.” 

“Do not get Gansey.”

“I’m getting Gansey.” He drifts out of Ronan’s bedroom, leaving the door open in his wake. And Ronan thinks it is stupid that he opened the door in the first place; aren’t ghosts supposed to be non-corporeal or something? On reflex, Ronan unfolds himself from his position on the floor to lock Gansey out, but he is stopped by the man himself, looking rumpled and sleep deprived. Gansey’s particular brand of insomnia stems from restless, anxious, whirling energy. Sometimes, when neither of the boys can sleep, Ronan finds Gansey seated in his model of Henrietta and helps him paint little houses and place little dogs and skirts around the topics sleepy Gansey drags up from his deepest, most existential self. If Gansey got answers to half the questions he asked, he would easily have encyclopedic knowledge of Ronan, Adam, Noah, and Blue. Gansey pushes his glasses further up his nose; the wire rims make him look more like a weathered professor disguising himself as an eighteen year old boy than anything. 

“Come help me,” Gansey says, and against everything Ronan prides himself on, he steps out of his bedroom and closes the door gently behind him. Chainsaw squawks indignantly from the other side, and Noah swings the door open again. “So, what’s up?”

“Shut up, Dick,” Ronan says, just to bother him. “Just give me a fuckin’ building or something, okay?”  
Much to his surprise, Gansey complies, and they sit in pensive silence while Ronan glues a convenience store together and Gansey fixes the siding of 300 Fox Way, which he’d recently been informed was wrong. The mood Ronan‘s in is more burnt out than pissed off, which leaves him feeling vulnerable and wasted. 

“Kerah?” Chainsaw chirrups from her perch on the Henrietta public high school, which makes her look like a giant. She’s asking if Ronan is better now, he _knows_ this, but he doesn’t have the energy to answer her. Noah calls her to him, and she hops down, neatly sideswiping several houses and walking straight through the park. 

“Okay, seriously, what is bothering you?” Gansey asks. “I want an honest answer.”  
Heaving a sigh, Ronan shrugs. 

“I really don’t know. I’m fucking- I’m a mess, clearly, Jesus-“

“Stop that, that, that self-deprecating bullshit. Just stop.”

“Well, fuck you too, Gansey,” Ronan mumbles. He presses the roof onto the convenience store; all he has left to do is paint it. “I already said I don’t know what’s going on. What else do you want me to say? Should I, like, confess my undying love to you, or something? Would that make you feel better?” 

“No, it certainly would not.” Gansey pauses to wipe a glob of hot glue away from Fox Way. “I’m just worried about you. I’ve noticed that your nightmares have been dramatically worse lately, and I think it’s important that we start thinking about how to correct this issue.”

“I have to work it out myself,” Ronan says. “Besides, it’s not like you know anything about brains or whatever.” He dabs a tiny paint brush into a little pot of gray gouache, laying down a base for the finer details of the minuscule building. 

“I know that you’re just trying to cover up your insecurity and fear with aggression,” Gansey replies cooly, moving on to a gas station that Chainsaw had knocked over in her pursuit of Noah. “And I know that you’re scared of pulling your nightmares into reality, and I know that it’s happened before.”

Stunned into silence, Ronan blinks at him. “Okay, Freud, are you going to tell me that I’ve wanted to fuck my mom this whole time, or what?”

“Cut the crap, man. Adam and I both think-“

“You’ve talked to _Adam_ about me? Jesus. Don’t you think he has enough to worry about?” Hands shaking, he sets the convenience store down to dry and stands up, fuming. Chainsaw flaps over to him. “Not cool, Gansey.”

“Something’s gotta give,” Gansey sighs, defeated. “I don’t know what to do, but it’s hurting all of us to watch you suffer by yourself, Adam especially.” He yawns, and wipes his hands on his flannel pajama bottoms. “I’m calling quits for tonight. We’re not done talking.”

“No, you’re right, we aren’t done. Let’s settle this now, _Dick_. I don’t need you worrying about me. I don’t need you dragging Adam into this. And most of all, I don’t need you trying to psychoanalyze me. If you really want to help me, butt. Out.” He steps carefully through Henrietta and stomps the rest of the way to his door. “And by the way? You fucked up Fox Way even worse this time.” His bedroom door slams hard enough to rattle his over-packed bookshelves, and Gansey swears from the other room. At once delighted and ashamed, Ronan throws himself down into his bed and jams his headphones on. Trinkets scatter as he lands, hitting the floor or the wall or the clothes piled at the foot of his bed. God, Gansey’s fucking thick skulled for someone so smart. Before he can get his music turned up enough to drown everything else out, he catches Gansey’s voice through the door. 

“I honestly don’t... to do anymore... he needs... I know, Adam.”

Terror grips him by the throat and pushes him deeper into his mattress. _Adam_ should not be dragged into this. Adam should be focusing on his studies and getting into Yale, not Ronan being too fucking stupid to deal with his own issues. Adam is supposed to be asleep right now. Adam is supposed to be in his bed at St. Agnes’s, dreaming of a better future, while Ronan dreams him hand cream and sheets that never dirty and soap that actually takes the smell of motor oil and antifreeze out of his saturated skin. Despite his whirling thoughts, his tired body betrays him. Exhaustion hits Ronan from behind like a sucker punch in a bar fight and he falls into a weary, restless sleep, and wakes up in a weary, restless mood. 

He‘s lucky Aglionby is on summer break. This is a day where he can barely drag himself out of bed, let alone plod through another meaningless day of school. He wakes up to Noah’s smudged face peering over him from the side of the bed, Chainsaw on his shoulder. 

“What day is it?” He groans, squinting up at Noah. 

“Tuesday. You’re covered in glass,” Noah remarks, pointing out the unnaturally green shards littering his bed. 

“Fuck me,” Ronan mutters. Glass pinches at his skin, but he doesn’t want to move for fear of rolling into the prickly mess surrounding him. “Jesus.”

“Also, everyone is here.” The idea of a smile graces his lips, seeming to solidify his features. 

“Everyone?”

“Blue, Adam, me, Gansey... isn’t that everyone?” Chainsaw offers a bob of her head in agreement. 

“Help me up,” Ronan grunts, reaching toward Noah. “Come on. Grab my arms and pull me out, Danny Phantom.”

Noah grasps his forearms uncertainly, giving an experimental tug. “I don’t think I’m strong enough.”

“Just fucking try, Noah, _please_.”

“Maybe... maybe I should get Gansey.”

“Do. Not. Get. Gansey.” Ronan snaps. “I swear to God, Noah-“ 

With that, Noah yanks Ronan onto the floor, sending glass flying. “Sorry, sorry!” He says, dusting debris off of Ronan. 

“It’s fine, Noah, relax.” Ronan shakes his shirt, realizing dimly that he is, in fact, bleeding. “Jesus- tell them I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Are you sure?” Noah asks, anxiously sizing up the damage. “I can get you, like, bandaids or something.” 

Ronan scrubs a hand over his face, sighing. “Listen, I know you want to help, but I’ll take care of it. Really.”

“Okay,” Noah concedes, unsure. He drifts (walks? floats?) toward the door, and Chainsaw flaps crookedly off of his shoulder, landing with a soft _whump_ as Noah swings the door closed behind him. Peeling the shirt away from his skin, Ronan winces and steps around the broken glass. Logically, he knows that he should clean out the wounds, but realistically, he‘ll leave them until he could shower later. Against his better judgement, Ronan throws on a tank top and bandages one of the deeper gashes across his forearm. Most of the mess is dream blood, brighter, thicker than blood should be. This he wipes away with his ruined shirt. Chainsaw chirrups from her perch on his desk. 

“Shut up,” Ronan grunts, throwing the soiled shirt at her. She squawks indignantly, puffing out her chest. Her beetle black eyes glare at him as if to say _go out there, pussy,_ but instead she just sings her usual _kerah_ and flies over to his door. He can feel his pulse in the bandage across his arm; he must have pulled it too tight. Saying a brief prayer, Ronan flings open his door. 

Monmouth Manufacturing is truly magnificent in the soft Henrietta sun, dusty yellow air casting a sepia glow to Gansey’s castle. Stepping out of his room is like stepping into the mind of an obsessed scholar. The maps, the diagrams, the stacks of books- it can be tiring, but it’s _Gansey,_ and it is hard to not be charmed by everything about the man. Sometimes, Ronan worries he‘s in love. 

“Noah has informed me that you’ve had a rather unfortunate incident.”

But then Gansey says something stupid and pretentious like that, and Ronan snaps out of it. 

“I took care of it,” Ronan says, careful to keep his voice even. Gansey, tanned golden and soft around the edges, stands in the kitchen with his back to Ronan. Blue is sat on the counter with Noah, who has his head in her lap and sock feet hanging off the end. Her hands are in his hair, petting it away from his face, and it is such a silly intimate moment that Ronan briefly forgets his troubles, letting his heart swell with appreciation for his friends. Adam’s fingers tap out a restless rhythm on the island, and Ronan can’t shake the urge to grab his hands and hold them steady. 

“Eggs?” Gansey asks, still not turning around. Without waiting for Ronan’s go, he answers himself. “Good. I’m making eggs.” 

“What is this, intervention?” Ronan asks. “Are you going to send me to bad dream rehab or some shit like that?”

“No, but we are all here to tell you to get your _shit_ together,” Gansey snaps, finally turning. Exhaustion paints his face, sharpening his edges and deepening his shadows. Ronan is stricken with sudden, sharp guilt- he has done this to Gansey. Gansey is losing sleep over him. Eggs sizzle on the stove- Gansey pauses to flip them. “The fact of the matter is that your bull-headedness is not appreciated by any of us. I can’t stand seeing you like this, Ronan. None of us can.”

“It’s kind of scary,” Noah admits. “I’m used to you not sleeping, but this is... worse.”

“Shut the fuck up, Christmas Past,” Ronan snarls, at a loss for anything better to say. “God, Gansey, sometimes I just want to strangle you.” Adam stops tapping, and Noah sits up. “Honestly. I understand that you hate it when things aren’t going your way, but you can’t control everything.”

“This is more than control,” Blue pipes up, sitting tall. “It’s concern. And since you can’t get it through your thick skull that it’s okay to let people care about you, I’m going to be selfish and say that it’s about us. When you don’t sleep, you’re off your game, and frankly, it’s dangerous to have you in Cabeswater when you aren’t focused. What if something happens to one of us and you can’t do anything to stop it? You’d never be able to forgive yourself.”

“Don’t act like you’re one of us, maggot,” Ronan snarls. Blue clenches her jaw, and the whole room goes still. Gansey takes a step away from the stove, spatula in hand. Even Noah manages to look kind of angry, though it is strange and unnatural on his face. “You’re just a know-it-all bitch with something to prove.”

“Hey-“ Gansey starts, taking another step away from the stove. 

Blue shoots him a look. She leaps down from the counter and marched over to Ronan. In her t-shirt dress and lacy tights, she looks like an oversized doll, but Ronan knows better than to say it. 

“Say it again,” Blue growls. Despite her small stature, she takes up more space than any of the boys. Chainsaw chirps and hops onto the island, where Adam is sitting. “Come on, coward, say it again.”

“No.” He takes a step back, putting subtle distance between himself and Blue. In reality, he doesn’t mean what he said. The words just threw themselves out of his mouth before he could stop them. Gansey is poised to step between them, watching anxiously. Adam, for his part, has remained silent. To Ronan, this is worse. To Ronan, Adam’s silence is Adam’s judgement, and Adam’s judgement is absolute. 

“I think you’re a spineless, entitled rich boy with a chip on your shoulder and too much free time,” Blue says, squaring her shoulders. She prods him in the chest with one paint stained finger. “And you’re so scared of being seen as weak that you’ll do anything to hide your problems. Do not think for one second that I’m going to let you talk to me like that _ever_ again, Ronan Lynch.” 

Blue’s brief summary of Ronan’s entire personality hits him like a ton of bricks. Shock is replaced by anger is replaced by fear, a vicious cycle that he has grown used to. “Fuck all of you,” he snarls, and strides heavily out of the apartment. Summer mornings in Henrietta are dim saunas, foggy and damp until the sun broaches the steep rim of the mountains surrounding them. Mist parts in great curls as Ronan lurches down the street, passing up the BMW in favor of walking. It hurts too much to look at his dumb fucking car anyway. Niall Lynch would never have spoken to Blue like that. Niall Lynch would have taken care of his own problems. Niall Lynch wouldn’t have allowed his friends to worry about him. There is violence in the air this morning as Ronan tries his hardest not to scream and throw himself into the street. Anger pulses through him, red hot and reckless. Without a specific destination, Ronan’s path winds indecisively through Henrietta, stopping at the liquor store for cheap beer and circling back for vodka. By noon he is thoroughly drunk, enough that he needs confession. Enough that he can hate himself for as long as he wants and forget about it the next day. Eventually, he finds himself sprawled on the steps of St. Agnes’ cathedral, crying hysterical Hail Marys to the unforgiving sun. He wants to hit something; he wants to die. If Adam could see him now, he’d laugh his bony ass off. Ronan is pathetic. His problems aren’t real, they‘re unfortunate symptoms of an overactive imagination. Some days, Ronan thinks he is going crazy. Other days, he knows he is. 

“Oh, thank god. We’ve been calling you, Ronan, Jesus Christ-“ 

“Be holy,” Ronan reminds Adam. Why can’t anyone ever respect God’s name? “We’re at- we’re at church.”

“Haven’t you heard your phone?” Adam asks, and Ronan registers distantly that he is mad. Like, really mad. 

“What, this thing?” Ronan pulls the smartphone from his pocket and holds it up, squinting into the white sun. “This piece of shit?” 

“ _Yes,_ ” Adam insists. Exasperation bubbles in his voice. 

“Fuck- fuck that,” Ronan grumbles, and pitches the phone with immense vigor at the sidewalk, laughing as its glass screen shatters. 

“Oh, god,” Adam groans. Horror spread slowly across his face, and Ronan is comforted only by the fact that he is allowed to hate himself right now. “Oh, Jesus. What the hell, Ronan? How drunk are you?” 

“Drunk enough,” he reckons. Slowly but surely, misery is working its way into his bones. The concrete steps dig into every place they touch him, a pain which Ronan knows he deserves. This is what he wanted. This is reconciliation. 

Adam sighs heavily, deflating like a popped balloon. “Get up,” he demands, offering a hand to help Ronan stand. Afraid of not being able to let go, Ronan pushes himself up without taking Adam’s hand. God, isn’t he terrible? Adam’s shoulders pinch upward defensively; his mouth presses into a firm line. Ronan wants to rub at his lips, wants them full and parted the way they are when he’s at Cabeswater. When he’s amazed, when he’s soft and pliable with satisfaction in his eyes. The sun hits him just right, and patches of his shirt are so worn that Ronan can see right through them. The thought of touching Adam’s spine, just where the light is hitting it, bounces eagerly (miserably) around Ronan’s head.

“Where are we going?” He questions, barely able to speak the words for fear of letting too many out. 

“Back to my apartment,” Adam replies. Any emotion in his voice has dissipated, leaving behind nothing but the skeletons of words, more robotic than human. “It’s closer than Monmouth.”

The rest of the walk is quiet, save for the few minutes that Ronan forgets he is punishing himself and sings the dirty pub songs his father taught him in secret, away from the protective force of his mother. Adam’s apartment is tiny, this much Ronan knows. He knows that Adam can barely afford it. He knows that Adam is proud and ashamed of it, all at once. Without turning around to make sure Ronan is with him, Adam stomps up the stairs. He rests his forehead against the chipped, heavy wood door, the only barrier between his terrible oasis and the real world. 

“We were all terrified for you,” Adam confesses. He doesn’t seem to care if Ronan hears. “ _I_ was terrified, Ronan.” 

“Why?” His knees must be melting. There is no other reason for his legs to feel so wobbly. Distracted, Ronan watches a bead of sweat roll down the tanned arch of Adam’s neck. The jingle of his keys snaps him back to reality. “I don’t... I don’t deserve it.”

“That’s why we’re so worried, Ronan,” Adam sighs, letting himself (and Ronan, by extension) into his apartment. “You won’t let us help you, and you’re... you’re isolating yourself. For some reason you’ve gotten it into your head that you’re bad and that all you can be is bad, but that isn’t true. You’re _good,_ Ronan. You’re good.”

Ronan, in all his drunken glory, has to bite his tongue to keep from spilling every dark secret his heart can hold. Adam is his biggest weakness. While Gansey holds his life in his hands, it is Adam that pumps the air into his lungs, Adam that forces blood through his veins. And Ronan is just wasted enough to think these things without having to recall them in the morning. Gently, too gently, Adam guides Ronan over the splintered floor and Ronan’s heart leaps eagerly in his chest, singing “love me love me love me love me!” The ceiling is sloped low enough that Adam has to stoop to keep from cracking his head at some points, and Ronan’s whole body itches to drag him to the floor and just stay there, to keep him from hurting himself (at least, that’s what he tells himself). After what feels like a thousand years but is no more than thirty seconds, they reach Adam’s bed. Adam says “Sit,” so Ronan sits. Adam says “Stay,” so Ronan stays. Adam says “I’ll be right back,” so Ronan waits. The apartment smells like church incense and old wood and cheap cologne. From the bathroom, Adam emerges with arms full of gauze and rubbing alcohol and whatever else functional people used to dress wounds. It makes Ronan’s chest ache, knowing that wound care is a skill Adam had to learn. 

“Alright,” Adam says, mostly to himself. To Ronan, he says, “Take your shirt off, I need to see where you’re bleeding from.” 

“You need to... to what?”

“You’re bleeding, Ronan. Come on.” He holds out a hand, waiting for Ronan’s bloodied muscle shirt. 

“Oh. Alright,” Ronan concedes, shrugging off the tank top. He doesn’t have the capacity to be embarrassed; he is distracted by the soft curl of hair at the base of Adam’s neck. Apparently, he’s split open several of the nicks from this morning. Adam touches the bandage across his forearm, and Ronan knows what he’s wondering. 

“So, are you going to tell me what’s been going on or what?” Adam asks as he wipes dry blood away from Ronan’s abdomen. The cool rubbing alcohol is startling against his sun-warm skin. 

“I’ve just,” He pauses to hiccup. “I’ve just been having a rough few weeks, that’s all.”

“I thought you were honest,” Adam says. He scrubs a little harder, anger setting in. A tiny part of Ronan is grateful for Adam’s anger. “I thought you could at least tell _me_ the truth.” 

“I am,” Ronan insists. Waits for the guilt to fade. Alcohol loosens his words, washes away weary inhibitions. “I am honest.” _I am a liar I am a liar I am a liar_. 

Adam’s hand stills on Ronan’s abdomen. Ronan tries not to notice the way his fingers curl against his skin. “Stop,” Adam says. “Stop thinking.”

Like a dog, Ronan obeys. He lets his head roll back against Adam’s mattress and waits for his next command. He relishes in the distinct burn of disinfectant and disappointment. Quickly, Adam finishes playing doctor and Ronan has a new, clean shirt on. The feeling of Adam’s hands lingers around Ronan’s middle. 

“Let me look at your arm.” Again, Adam’s hand is on the bandage. Ronan knows how bad it looks, coupled with the other thin scars lined up in jagged formation. 

“If... if you want to,” Ronan says, and he’s too much of a coward to look down at the gash as Adam peels the bandage away. It is sticky with blood and sweat. 

“Oh,” Adam breathes, surprised. “Ronan-“

“I didn’t do it,” he says. “I swear, Adam. Stop looking at me like that. Stop.” He wishes he was drunker. 

“Would you tell me if you did?” He keeps his eyes level with Ronan’s. 

“Yes.”  
—

“I think you have a drinking problem,” Adam whispers. It’s the first thing he’s said in an hour, maybe two. 

Ronan is still on the floor. Adam has moved to the bed. Neither of them has made an effort to convince the other to go back to Monmouth; both have informed Gansey that he is, in fact, alive and well. Adam fussed over Ronan’s phone for a while , but Ronan insisted he’d be able to dream himself a new one (if he ever went to sleep). The air is thick in the apartment; Adam’s shirt is sticking to Ronan’s skin. 

“Oh?” Ronan replies, foggy headed. He’s pulling shards of screen off of his phone. 

Adam rolls onto his back. “Are you ever going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” Ronan drones. He shakes his phone; glittering slices of glass rain onto the floor in front of him. 

“That’s not an answer,” Adam says. “And stop picking at your phone. You’re going to cut your hands.” He slides his busted phone under Adam’s bed and holds up his hands as if to say, “see, I’m fine.”

He has to remind himself constantly that Adam, Gansey, Noah, and Blue are his friends. It’s hard to believe that these four very good people want to be around him at all. It’s hard to believe that they care enough to be worried about him. But there was Noah, staying up all night to keep him company (do ghosts even sleep?) and there was Gansey pulling him away from his room to keep him distracted (does Gansey even sleep?) and there was Blue, brave, putting everyone’s concern into terms that Ronan could understand (is she ever afraid?) and now here is Adam, his Adam, patching him up, keeping him company, saving him from himself again and again (does he know he makes Ronan’s chest ache with want?) Adam has not asked about the gash on Ronan’s arm again, but Ronan knows he wants to. They are walking a fine line between knowing too much and not knowing enough; Ronan hates to keep Adam worried but doesn’t want to give him a surplus of anxiety. This cut was accidental, sure, but that changes the story for the rest of them, marching down his arm like soldiers ready for battle. He knows that Noah knows, figures that Gansey wheedled it out of Noah, and if Gansey knows then so do Blue and Adam. So no matter how he looks at it, he can only assume that everyone knows. And this- this is what astounds him more than anything. If everyone knows what he did (does), why are they still friends with him?

“Are you sober yet?” Adam asks. 

“Yes.” 

“Are you ready to go back?”

“I guess.”

“Alright.” Neither of them move. Ronan rests his head on his knees. Adam traces the sharp curve of his tattoo with one thin finger, startling Ronan, who wants the moment to last forever and be over immediately. “Let’s go,” Adam says. His hand is warm on Ronan’s neck. 

“Okay,” Ronan breathes. There is no room in his body for everything he is feeling. Adam swings his legs over the side of the bed, narrowly missing Ronan’s head with his left foot. He can still feel Adam’s hand on the back of his neck. 

Adam leaves the apartment without looking back, because he knows that Ronan will follow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, brief warning for alcohol dependency mentioned!

His friends are all unbearable, too loyal and too human and too good to be real. They are unattainable; they don’t make sense. And yet, here they all are, huddled at the end of Gansey’s model of Henrietta and cackling because Chainsaw has trampled some little pedestrians and Gansey is absolutely horrified. It’s as if this morning never happened. When Adam and Ronan returned to Monmouth, Blue had squeezed Ronan furiously and whispered, “don’t you ever scare me like that again, you asshole,” before punching him in the shoulder; the moment was terribly soft and Ronan couldn’t remember growing so fond of Blue Sargent. Gansey and Adam shot each other heavy glances. 

Blue’s hair is wild and Gansey has his glasses on and Noah is barely visible and Adam is solemn in his too worn clothes. Ronan loves and hates all of it. His heart soars with what could be but sinks with what can’t.

“What am I going to do?” Gansey groans, head in his hands. “Those people took so long to paint.”

“Good thing neither of us sleeps,” Ronan quips. Gansey stills his frantic hands; realizing his mistake, Ronan bites his lips and waits for the inevitable explosion of disappointment and big words. 

Gansey grins. “Yeah, good thing.”

And Ronan is safe.   
—

Ronan Lynch has always had nightmares. 

They started when he was young; they won’t stop until he’s dead. That’s how it works for dreamers- they take and take and get torn to shreds. They bring their worst fears into the waking world and pray to every god that this time, it won’t be so bad. 

Ronan startles awake. His new phone tells him that it is 3:03 AM, Saturday, over a week since he woke up lying in glass. Noah, gaunt and transparent, is standing at the door. It’s freezing in his room. Ronan’s heart is going too fast, a frantic hummingbird behind his ribs. Panic courses through his body, lighting him up from the inside out. “What the fuck do you want?” He croaks. 

“It’s coming,” Noah says. He flickers. 

“What?”

“It’s here it’s here it’s here it’s here it’s here it’s here it’s here,” Noah groans from the doorway. Suddenly, he is beside Ronan’s bed. Ronan scrambles backward. This is not his Noah. This is bad, wrong. His cheek caves in; he touches his face and there is blood on his fingers. Back pressed against the wall, Ronan watches in horror as Noah falls to the floor, convulsing. 

“Gansey!” He calls frantically. “Gansey, Gansey!”

Chainsaw is screeching. Terrible seconds tick by as Noah dies on his bedroom floor and Gansey isn’t here, why isn’t Gansey _here-_

“Holy shit,” Gansey breathes, and without meaning to, Ronan has jammed himself all the way into the corner. 

“Do something,” he pleads. Gansey doesn’t move. “He’s dying, Gansey, he’s dying.”

“We need Adam,” Gansey says, eyes glued to Noah. Ronan envies his apparent calm, his ability to be a diplomat even in dire straits. His composure is almost disgusting. Noah’s legs are pedaling, scrambling for purchase on Ronan’s floor. The room is too quiet. Gansey is white as a sheet. Chainsaw flaps over to Noah, pecks uncertainly at the floor beside his head. Against his better judgement, Ronan lunges out of bed and across the room in two strides.

“Don’t- don’t… don’t leeeave,” Noah wheezes, but Ronan is out of the door and flying down the stairs. He’s in the car and pulling away from Monmouth before he even feels his body, feels his shaking, shivering bones. He guns it to Adam’s apartment. As he rolls down Adam’s street, the sweet smell of rot fills his lungs; the closer he gets to Adam’s, the stronger the odor grows. He leaves the car running in the street and pounds up the stairs to Adam’s door, choking on the sickly scent of decay. He hammers on Adam’s door- from within, he hears what sounds like static. The street lights flicker, and from the corner of his eye, he sees movement. He tries the knob, not expecting it to turn, and tumbles into Adam’s apartment. It’s _alive,_ the floor is moving, the walls are writhing. Adam is nowhere to be seen. 

“What the fuck, what the fuck,” he breathes, shuffling through the moving room and trying desperately to locate Adam. In the dim light, he can make out something slumped in the middle of the floor. The static sound is overwhelming; the smell is unbearable. 

He stops, takes in his surroundings. “Adam?” The only answer he receives is the dizzying static. 

The figure on the floor is moving, just like the walls. 

Approaching with caution, Ronan says a brief prayer. _Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee-_ His heart is in his throat. He nudges the lump. It offers little resistance- instead, the toe of his boot goes straight through the side, scraping against something jagged. It occurs to him that this obstacle is clearly creating the stench he’s been bathed in. _Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus-_

Something bites him.

“What the fuck,” he says again, because there is a bug on his arm. 

Something lands on his head, scitters across his scalp. 

His foot is still stuck in whatever is lying on the floor, and now he has bugs climbing all over him. Carefully, he bends down to examine the reeking mass he’s trapped in. 

His boot is lodged in the rib cage of a rotting deer. The bottom half of the animal is missing; a slippery mess of blood and entrails paint the floor. The skin is loose and crawling with something clearly alive. Great chunks of flesh are missing. Whatever is swarmed around the deer has clearly been eating on it. 

_It’s here,_ Noah had said. 

He is bitten again. This time, however, it dawns on him that this is not a bite, it’s a sting. Fuzzy headed and terrified, Ronan realizes that Adam’s apartment is crawling with yellow jackets. Horror spills into his body as if poured there by God himself. He extracts his foot from the deer carcass and sees the apartment with new eyes, taking in the hoard of bees. 

His first thought is _Gansey!_  
His second is _Where is Adam?_

The dull hum of the yellow jackets is deafening. Dread sinks into his limbs, weighing him down as he makes his way to the bathroom door. It’s the only place he hasn’t looked. There are no bees here; water has pooled on the floor before the threshold. He has to force the door open. _Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners-_

Adam is kneeling in front of the tiny bath. The tap is running. His face is just centimeters above the overflowing water, and he’s quivering, hands clenched around the lip of the tub. What feels like an acre of floor lies between them, slick with cold water and things left unsaid. Ronan rushes to him. He wrenches him away from the tub and turns the water off. Adam doesn’t make a sound. Ronan guides him stumbling out of the apartment, down to the car, brushing yellow jackets off of each of them along the way. Luckily, the insects don’t follow them out. Fog has crept up the street, blanketing them in a dense gray mist. It is too cold to be a summer night in Henrietta. As if he isn’t scared enough, shadows shift in the mist and there is someone else here, there has to be. Adam makes a god awful sound and folds over, retching into the street. Something black and viscous pours out of his mouth. The shadow lopes toward them. _Now and at the hour of our death. Hail Mary, full of grace-_

“Adam,” Ronan says, grabbing him under the armpits. “Adam, we have to go.” He takes a step toward the car; Adam’s chest heaves and he throws up again. The shadow is getting closer. “Adam, come on!”

Adam collapses. The fog curls around him, like it’s trying to protect him. Ronan’s anxiety peaks. _The Lord is with thee-_

“Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit,” he chants, dragging Adam’s limp body into the back of the BMW and making sure to keep his head turned to the side in case he throws up again. If he’s getting out of here without having to find out whatever that _thing_ is, he has to drive _now_.

Adam will not be able to help with Noah. Without thinking, Ronan drives to 300 Fox Way. _Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen._  
—

“This is very, very bad,” Maura says. Blue is on the floor, holding Adam’s face in her hands, wiping away the sheen of sweat that dampens his skin. 

Calla has Ronan’s head on her shoulder. He hasn’t been able to speak. “Your boys are no good, Blue Sargent,” she says, but there is worry in the curve of her beautiful mouth. “Something wicked this way comes.”

Blue glances at her mother. “I need to call Gansey.”

“Yes,” Maura agrees. She bends to take Blue’s place with Adam. 

Orla, in pink silk and feathers, squeezes Blue’s hand as she passes into the kitchen. 

All of the women of 300 Fox Way are pressed together in the reading room. Ordinarily, Ronan would hate being here. Tonight, though, he doesn’t have the capacity. 

“You are certainly something,” Calla says to Ronan, rubbing the scruff of his head. He wants to pull away from her, to be disgusted by her, but Calla is Blue’s and he can’t be angry at her. Not when she’s holding him like he’s her own. Not when he knows she doesn’t have to be helping him, but she’s doing it anyway, because she is a good woman. “I think you need a drink.”

“Adam thinks I have a drinking problem,” Ronan says, despite himself. Calla’s arm tightens around him. There is a collective sigh from the women. He stiffens, cursing himself for opening his dumb, traitorous mouth. On the floor, Adam groans. Hail Marys drift past Ronan’s gritted teeth.

When Ronan had pulled up in front of Fox Way, Maura was already on the porch. 

“I need help,” Ronan cried. 

“I know,” she said, and helped him lift Adam onto his feet, helped him get through the door without collapsing in on himself, helped him get to the couch where Calla was waiting with her arms open. 

Ronan is ordinarily uncomfortable with these women, but tonight, they are making it hard.

He wants to be on the floor with Adam, holding his hair away from his face and praying the rosary. He wants to know what was trying to get to them in the fog. He wants to know what was in Adam’s apartment, what was happening to Noah, if both boys are okay. The couch creaks as Calla shifts. 

His heart ricochets around his chest. Ronan sees the image of Adam crouched before the bathtub, almost touching the water. What the _hell_ was he doing? 

“I know you don’t like us,” she starts, voice slick with malice and charity. She traces the line of his tattoo, and Ronan jerks away. Heart pounding, he rises from the couch. It is too close to real, too close to Adam, too close to home. 

“Don’t touch me,” he hisses, and understands that Calla calls him Snake for a reason. Maura’s head snaps up, eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. She opens her mouth to speak, probably to yell at him or curse him or whisper with the devil, but she is cut off by a willowy cloud of a woman entering the room.

“Leave him be,” Persephone sighs, a will-o’-the-wisp in the dim light of the reading room. The ugly stained glass chandelier is down to two bulbs. Ronan is coiled and ready for flight. He wants to be back at Monmouth where he belongs, but he is stuck here with a bunch of crazy hellbound women and one friend who is most certainly going to die.

Or something. 

He bites his tongue to keep from hissing at her, too. The memory of Calla’s hand against his skin has seared itself firmly in place; he can still feel the ghost of her fingers tracing his tattoo. Tension sits in the room like a new piece of furniture, belonging there and out of place all at once. Ronan crosses his arms; Maura drags her gaze away from him and back to Adam. He knows that these women have access to his deepest, darkest secrets, and knows from the way they’re all gathered that they’re getting everything they need without asking a single question. Despite their promises of not dealing in specifics, he has the creeping feeling of being observed intimately. From the kitchen, Ronan catches bits and pieces of Blue’s phone conversation with Gansey, all of the “I don’t know”s and “be careful”s making him sick to his stomach. If he hadn’t woken up, perhaps none of this would have happened. It registers distantly that he is in shock; he has seen too many bad things in the past hour to be feeling well. This realization only serves to make him feel worse. 

Right now, Ronan Lynch is all alone. 

Suddenly unable to stand the feeling of being taken apart piece by piece, Ronan explodes out of the reading room and stomps to the front porch, where he sits and waits for something to happen. Moths beat themselves against the porch light, rhythmic and wanting. The BMW is parked precariously, tail end hanging out into the street, but he can’t be bothered to fix it. In his head, he sees Gansey rushing around Monmouth, gathering his notes and EMF readers and stupid books and piling everything in the Pig, prepared and able. Truthfully, Gansey can’t be prepared for anything like this. No one can. The screen door creaks dolefully open, releasing a storm of a girl onto the porch with him. Blue’s face is steely. She throws herself down beside him. 

“Son of a bitch,” she curses. Ronan grunts in agreement. “Gansey’s going to be here soon. He said he was dealing with Noah.”

“Yeah,” Ronan says. As bad as it makes him feel, Noah has been the furthest thing from his mind. He picks at a fray in his jeans. His anger comes in waves. “Yeah.”

“How’s your arm?”

He’d honestly forgotten about it. A brown, scaly scab has formed along the majority of the gash, making the skin tight with healing. 

“None of your goddamn business,” Ronan snaps, more animal than boy. To her credit, Blue just makes a _hmm_ noise and nods her head sagely. 

“I’m glad you trust us enough to come here,” she confides, kicking at a wet leaf with her sock feet. “I know it’s probably… _weird_ here for you.”

“Yeah, well, everything’s fucking weird for me right now, so.” He doesn’t have to look at her to know she’s doing that thing where she looks very closely at him with her eyebrows all over the place, trying to get answers to questions she won’t ask. “Including you, maggot,” he adds for good measure. 

From inside, Ronan hears a gasp, a retch, a half formed sob. He’s on his feet before he knows what’s happening, but Blue has a hand on his arm and is saying something that Ronan doesn’t care enough to listen to because he’ll be damned if Adam is suffering and he isn’t there to stop it. 

“He’s in good hands,” Blue reminds him. 

“I should be in there,” Ronan says. If Blue notices the crack in his voice, she doesn’t mention it. The light flickers above them again, gets inexplicably bright; once, twice, three times before going completely out. As it’s faltering, Adam is keening inside, voice hoarse and shaking. The hair on the back of Ronan’s neck stands, and beside him, Blue shivers. Static electricity crackles through the thick air.

“Coincidence,” Blue says, because it isn’t. The rumble of Gansey’s shitty Camaro is the only discernible sound now- even the cicadas have gone silent. 

“Yeah,” Ronan says, watching the bulb for any signs of life. Gansey’s door slams. “Coincidence.”  
—

“Well,” Gansey says, looking down at his steaming mug of tea. He is backlit by candles, all wild hair and plaid pajama bottoms that Ronan wishes he could tear his eyes away from. They’re ugly as sin, but they’re Gansey, and that makes them inexplicably right in Ronan’s eyes. “This is… Unideal.”

“You don’t say,” Ronan drawls. As soon as Gansey had gotten through the door, the women (who were otherwise unoccupied) locked them in, peeking through curtains and throwing salt down where any air could seep through. Orla, looking bored, had stomped through the house with sage, waving it through the only open door, then slamming that one shut as well. Gansey stood uselessly beside Ronan in the whirlwind of woman and shot him questioning looks. Blue, for her part, ushered them to the kitchen and poured tea for them.

Gansey clears his throat. His foot taps against Ronan’s under the table. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what’s happening, Jane?”

She sighs. “You would be the first to know, Gansey.” 

Ronan grumbles, “This tea tastes like shit.” Blue and Gansey ignore him, choosing instead to go over the details of Adam’s ordeal. The power hasn’t come back on yet. Ronan rocks back in his chair, thinks about throwing his feet up on the table just to be an ass. He swigs from his cup instead, wishing he’d taken Calla up on her offer of alcohol. 

“And you said he hasn’t been lucid at all?” Gansey asks. His cheeks are flushed red. In the candlelight, Blue’s gaze is lit from within, eyes on Gansey’s face.

“He’s been in and out of it,” Blue says. Ronan hates this, hates watching his friends become more than friends, hates that he knows their secret before they do. If Adam could see them right now, he would be crushed. Delicate hand coming up to cover her mouth, Blue yawns. “What time is it?” 

“A little after four. I don’t suppose you were thinking of going back to sleep?” Ronan knows the look on Gansey’s face; this is the scholar, the man obsessed. Who needs sleep when there’s knowledge to be devoured? He also knows that Gansey may be irreparably damaged if Blue doesn’t stay awake with him.

Blue says, “No way.” Pleased, Gansey smiles at her. “What happened with Noah?”

“He went away,” Gansey replies, sipping from his own chipped mug. “Wow, Jane, this tea certainly is… Effluvious.”

“Just say it’s bad, man, no one knows what _effluvious_ means,” Ronan groans. The candles seem to flicker in agreement. Ronan knows they’re having this conversation to keep each other away from the idea of Adam’s eyes, rolled back in his head; his hands clutching at nothing. He hasn’t been able to bring himself to talk about what happened at Adam’s apartment. 

“I’m certain that’s inaccurate.” His wire frames slip down his nose; Blue reaches across the table and pushes them back up tenderly. This is what Ronan lives for, the intimacies of life and death that come along with being Gansey’s. Here is the feeling of overwhelming love, tucked away in the shape of Gansey’s hand as it knocks on Ronan’s bedroom door before entering. Here is the unwavering loyalty as Adam comes to Monmouth in the pouring rain after his shift at the trailer factory because Gansey asked him to. Here is Blue, strange and glorious, everything all of the boys never knew they needed, and here are the four boys, lifting and pushing Blue into herself. It is quiet in the kitchen now, each of them turning over their thoughts privately. It is quiet in the reading room, too, where Ronan can see that Maura is holding Adam’s head and pouring water between his lips. 

If Niall Lynch were alive, he would be pushing Ronan into the other room to help. 

Ronan tears his eyes away from Maura’s dim form, instead looking to the window above the sink. The sky is gray-black-blue with wanting for the sun. 

He needs a drink.

—

By the time the sun has risen, Adam has been coaxed back into weary reality. Currently, Ronan is watching his eyes flicker back and forth behind his closed eyelids, waiting for Adam to speak. It is quiet in Fox Way. The women have all gone back to sleep, and Gansey and Blue have been camped out under her beech tree since they got the news that Adam would be okay. It seemed to be an unspoken agreement that Ronan would be the one to look after Adam. 

“What happened?” Adam whispers, eyes remaining closed. His breath comes in shallow rasps.

“I don’t know,” Ronan answers, honestly, hating himself for not having the answers. “Nothing good. Obviously.”

“Go piss up a rope, asshole.” Adam lets a bleary grin sneak onto his mouth. “Is my apartment wrecked?”

“It’s a tremendous yellow jacket nest right now, so… Unless you like it that way, yes.” This is what Adam wants, apparently, the quick banter and the ease of speech. Ronan is more than okay with that. “It’s fucked.” There is a beat of silence, where Ronan listens to his pulse pounding in his ears and Adam takes flinching breaths.

“I don’t remember you coming to get me,” he says.

“There’s not much to remember.”

Adam sighs. In the weak light filtering through the blinds, he looks so frail. “No, I need to know what happened. I remember the apartment. I remember scrying in the bathtub because I thought it was Cabeswater, trying to contact me. I remember thinking I was hallucinating.” The circles under his eyes are dark enough to be bruises.

“It seemed pretty damn real to me,” Ronan says. Adam offers a soft _hmm,_ in response. “It was bad, Parrish. It was really, really bad.” 

“What do you think it was?”

“Honestly? I think that something happened to the line, or someone wanted to send a message. Probably both. _Definitely_ both.” 

“How did you know to come get me?”

“I didn’t. Noah was freaking out and, like, _glitching_ or whatever, and Gansey said to pick you up to come help us.” Watching Adam breathe is like watching a car accident. Terrible and wonderful and impossible. Ronan wants to stop. He wants to stop looking at Adam, but he can’t. “I don’t know, man. This whole thing has been really messed up. And the psychics _knew_ something was happening but didn’t do anything about it. That’s like… That’s really fucked up.”

“You just think that because you have a hero complex,” Adam yawns. “Besides, I’m sure they didn’t know all the details.” He pulls his sock feet back from where they’ve been resting against Ronan’s thigh. This is perhaps Adam’s most tragic quality; his refusal to take up space for fear of inconveniencing someone else. On instinct, Ronan grabs Adam’s ankles and stretches his legs back out, pulling until Adam’s halfway in his lap. 

“Stop bunching yourself up like that,” he grunts. “Jesus. You need to stretch out, Parrish.”

Adam turns his face to the back of the couch and sighs. “Whatever, Lynch. I’m going to get some sleep.” 

“Good.” 

Silence falls over them, but it’s the kind of quiet that is so comfortable that breaking it might hurt. Ronan watches shadows move across the ceiling, trying (and failing) to keep his eyes off of Adam, whose breath has steadied and grown slow. He could stay here for years; he wants to hurl himself off of the couch. 

Gradually, Ronan comes back into himself. The night had been such a blur, it was like watching a movie, like floating above his body and looking down at the wreckage. Everything feels slightly off. The earth has tilted on its axis, throwing things out of order, and Ronan is powerless to do anything about it. 

He wants- no, _needs_ \- a drink. But here is Adam, sleeping, trusting, breathing. Helpless minutes pass, the dim gray light shifting slowly to pale, buttery yellow as Ronan’s desperation grows. He waits for Gansey, or Blue, or (god forbid) one of the psychics to come into the reading room and just read his thirst on his face. 

He doesn’t want Adam to wake up.

He lets his head fall back against the couch and counts the bulbs in the god awful chandelier. Counts them again.

Too aware of his own body, Ronan imagines Adam’s hand on the back of his neck, tracing his tattoo. Had his hand been hot or cold? What was that even about, anyway? He’s reading too far into it.

If it was Kavinsky’s hand, it would have been clammy and desperate. It would have been followed by lips, or (more likely) teeth. And there would have been vodka pressed against Ronan’s mouth, igniting the shame and making it tolerable.

He is _definitely_ reading too far into it. 

“Lynch!” Gansey calls, presumably from the kitchen. Ronan hadn’t heard them come in from the backyard. Voice closer, he asks, “How is he doing?”

Ronan heaves a sigh. “Sleeping, Dick, what does it look like?”

Ignoring Ronan’s attempt to end the conversation, Gansey continues. “I’m going on a supply run, you need anything?”

Something that will make his insides burn, that he’ll regret in the morning. “Get me a burger, would you? And ginger ale. For Adam.” He avoids Gansey’s gaze.

“Sure.” He is quiet for a terribly long moment. “Ronan, you- you know you’re like a brother to me. That’s- that’s never going to change. No matter what.”

“Jesus, Gans, you don’t have to be such a sap all the time.”

“Whatever. You can tell me anything, you know that, right?”

“Where’s this coming from, man?” His hands are sweating.

“It’s- it’s nothing, Ronan, forget it. What kind of burger do you want?” The moment passes, and Ronan is glad for it. That was one of the worst of Gansey’s professions of love to date. He rattles off his order and tries not to think too much about their conversation as he waits for Gansey to get back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, warnings for the use of a slur, mentions of alcohol, sex, and self harm for this chapter!!!!!!

Shitty electronica rattles through the BMW. Adam has turned the bass up, because sometimes, he can feel it against the side of his head. It is, he says, as close to hearing as he will ever get with that ear. Noah had been in the car with them; Ronan can’t recall when he went away. The world feels right for once, like things are finally getting normal. The dollar store parking lot has never seemed as happy as it does today. 

“We’re just here for cleaning supplies,” Adam reminds him. “No lighters, no alcohol, no knives. No danger. Cleaning supplies.”

Ronan pulls the key from the ignition. “I know, mom.”

“Race you to the door, though,” Adam says, because he already has a head start. This is the kind of boyish joy that Ronan remembers having before his dad died; limitless and unbounded. Quietly, it has started seeping back in around the edges.

Adam beats him by a long shot, but it was worth it. 

—

Ronan dreams while Adam stays at Monmouth with them. He dreams a weird, slippery necklace and gives it to Blue when she stops by (uninvited). He dreams some bright, unnatural cut flowers that don’t wilt or die, which he sends back to Fox Way with Blue to give to Maura. Stupidly, he pulls a small celtic cross out and knows it’s for Adam; this, he hides in between some books on his shelf. Gansey gets a pen that never runs out of ink; Noah gets a box with dozens of tiny snow globes. Chainsaw is particularly fascinated with the snow globes. She sits with Noah and pokes through them, cawing when she finds one she likes. 

Adam sulks about having to stay at Monmouth, but everyone is relieved to have him there. 

“I get the whole independence thing,” Blue says, uninvited (again) but in their living room (Gansey’s bedroom?) anyway. “But really, Adam, you need to get over yourself. Your place has been… compromised, for lack of a better word. This place hasn’t had a big weird incident like that. Chill out.” 

Noah, from on top of the pool table, voices his agreement. “Yeah, I mean, we’ve wanted you to stay here for like, ever. It’s better with everyone here together.” 

Ronan doesn’t feel the need to explain why he’s happy to have Adam around. Gansey’s enthusiasm covers enough ground. 

“Just because I’m staying here now doesn’t mean this is a forever thing,” Adam reminds them. His indignance is loud. “You all know I’m going back.” 

The celtic cross stays between Ronan’s books for days. Eventually, Chainsaw finds it and flies around Monmouth with it in her beak, silver chain hanging below her. Nobody says anything, but everyone knows it should belong to Adam- the knots twist like the vines in Cabeswater, little leaves peak through the delicate coils. And Adam hasn’t gotten anything yet. When Ronan dreams like this, Adam is always the first (usually the only) person to get something. Chainsaw seems to think it’s hers, so she keeps it until Gansey catches it out from under her little talon while she’s occupied with Noah. Wordlessly, he gives the cross to Ronan. _Gansey knows, he knows, he knows, he knows._

Ronan curses himself for being a coward. Secretly, he knows that he should give it to Adam. It’s supposed to be a protective talisman or something, and surely Cabeswater only made it a cross so Ronan would know what it was. But this (ironically) feels too intimate for Ronan, who is slow to show interest and slower still to show affection. A cross, sacred and true and heavy in Ronan’s hand, is way too close to an admission of… something. Something big and real that Ronan doesn’t even want to admit to himself. 

He makes sure Gansey is watching when he slips the cross over Adam’s head while they’re watching television that night. 

“What’s this supposed to be?” Adam asks, impassive, emotionless. He fingers the cross gingerly. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Ronan knows that Gansey can tell he’s having a lot of big feelings right now, but if Adam can tell, he doesn’t let on.

“This is nice, Ronan. This is really nice.” Adam lifts it over his head so he can get a closer look at it. “You dreamed this, didn’t you?”

“How could you tell?”

“Can’t you feel it? It feels like Cabeswater. I can- Ronan, I can _feel_ the forest,” Adam sighs. Relief spreads through Ronan like cold water on a hot day. 

“You’re welcome.”

—

“Your place still looks like shit,” Ronan warns Adam. It’s been a about a week since the… attack? and today is the first time Adam will be back in his own apartment. He twists the bag full of dollar store supplies.

Adam shoots him a look. “You act like you don’t know where I grew up.” Ronan, Blue, Noah, and Gansey have been by a couple times while Adam was at work. They didn’t let Gansey come by until all the yellow jackets were gone, which shouldn’t have been an ordeal but was. And when Gansey _was_ allowed in, he brought all of his meters and rods and devices and notebooks and got in the way more than anything. Blue had oscillated between looking like she could strangle Gansey and looking like she could kiss him. Noah mostly just drifted around looking guilty and washed out. 

Ronan feels kind of dirty for being in Adam’s place without permission. 

Despite the overwhelming heat, Adam has goosebumps. “When we find Glendower, I want a new apartment.” The certainty in Adam’s voice as he says _when_ instead of _if_ makes Ronan’s bones hurt. “Preferably out of state.” Ah, there it is, the familiar pang of something Ronan knows but does not want to think about. Adam grips the knob but does not turn it. After a moment, he lets go, knuckles white, expression unreadable. It occurs to Ronan that Adam is stalling. 

The truth of it is that Adam is a liar. He acts braver than he is. He’s as bad as Declan. He plays a role that fits him like an untailored suit, and Ronan, who is as much polygraph as boy, hates it. He wants to call Adam on it, but the timing is never right. Here is one of Ronan’s secrets; here stands a coward. 

Adam unlocks the door, heaves a sigh. 

Inside, there is no longer a deer carcass, but a deep, sticky stain running from the door to the center of the room. It smells strongly of Lysol and sage. Ronan sets the bag of cleaning supplies on Adam’s makeshift desk, which has been pushed up against the wall and out of the way. He tosses a pair of yellow dish gloves at Adam, who catches them with ease. They work in tandem for a while, scrubbing at the blood stain. It is strange to approach this without feeling, but Ronan is used to it by now. The time passes quickly; Ronan sings the murder squash song to bother Adam, who, in turn, splashes Ronan with soapy water. 

“I think I’m pretty lucky that there isn’t more water damage,” Adam notes, looking over to the bathroom. “There’s only, like, one messed up floorboard.”

Ronan leans back on his heels. “Yeah.” 

“What did Noah say before you came over?”

“He said ‘it’s coming,’ and then ‘it’s here’. I don’t know what he meant, but it sounded pretty fuckin’ bad.” Ronan stands. “Are you done with that? I’ll throw it away.”

“Oh, yeah. There’s trash bags under my bed.” Adam stands, too, and peels off his gloves. He hands Ronan the rag he’d been scrubbing the floor with. Rather than throw the gloves away as Ronan had done, Adam goes to the bathroom sink and starts rinsing them. “So, what do you think ‘it’ was?”

“I have no idea. Maybe the surge? I don’t- I don’t know, and I hate that.” Stooping to pick up a bottle of hardwood stain remover, he listens to Adam clatter around the bathroom. It is basic, domestic moments like this that make Ronan want to launch himself off of a roof or something. 

“Gansey got any theories yet?” Adam asks, peeking his head around through the door to watch what Ronan is doing. 

“Oh, you know. This and that.” Barring the lingering scent of gore, Adam’s place actually looks pretty good. One of these days, Ronan would have to pick up some real furniture and tell Adam he’d found it in the alley or something. _Or,_ a tiny, treasonous part of him whispers, _you could just ask him to move into the Barns with you, when you go back._ “Nothing really solid.”

Adam shuffles out of the bathroom and sets Ronan to work moving his makeshift furniture back to where it should be. If anyone else were here, Ronan wouldn’t be helping; after all, he doesn’t want anyone to think he’s Adam’s bitch.

But here he is. 

After they get everything in its place, Adam pulls out his deck of Tarot cards and offers them to Ronan. They’re sitting together on Adam’s shitty bed, and this has almost happened before, Ronan is sure of it. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Adam says, but it feels like a challenge, so Ronan takes them. He doesn’t think he remembers any other moment quite as quiet as this in Adam’s apartment. It’s sacred. 

“What am I supposed to do?” Ronan asks. The cards, large and awkward, feel foreign in his hands. He almost wishes he hadn’t taken them from Adam. 

“Shuffle them and cut the deck,” Adam says, like it’s obvious, like Ronan isn’t betraying everything he’s ever known just for a stupid card trick. “Then I’ll read for you. If you want, I mean. We don’t have to.”

“Okay, well I already have the fucking cards in my hands, Parrish, do you really-”

“Jesus Christ, calm _down_ ,” Adam chides. “Shuffle, Lynch.” There it is again, the challenge, the if-you-back-down-this-will-end-in-flames look. So Ronan shuffles, and cuts the deck into three neat stacks. Adam scoots closer.

“Now what?” He asks. Adam looks him in the eyes as he flips the top three cards. Ronan’s heart is racing. There is something in his middle, tugging him forward. They’re close enough, if Adam would just turn his head, lean forward- 

“Huh.” Adam restacks the unused cards, leaving behind the three he had flipped for Ronan. On the far left is a smudgy love heart with three swords sticking out of it. In the middle are two people (or shadows, or something person shaped) facing each other, holding chalices. The last card shows someone shrouded in robes, raising what appears to be a two ended candle to the sky. Adam’s forehead is creased; he has his thumb to his lip, the way Gansey does when he’s thinking. It’s a habit they’ve all picked up at some point.

“What?” When Adam doesn’t answer, Ronan mutters, “This is so fucking stupid,” and starts to pick up the three cards lying between them.

“Stop.” Adam has a hand gripped tightly around Ronan’s wrist, keeping him from moving the cards. “Don’t you want to know what they mean?”

“Not if you’re going to be so weird about it,” Ronan says, but Adam is already rattling off the divinatory meanings of the cards.

“-the Three of Swords, which means pain and suffering, so that’s good to have in the past. That’s… I mean, usually what’s in the past stays there, but I feel like this is going to come back. And there, in the present, that’s the Two of Cups. That’s like, new partnerships and stuff. But the really interesting one is what’s in the future. That,” he says, pointing to the smoky man with his double ended candle. “That is the Magician. That’s my card.”

“So what? You’re in my future, Magician?” He means it as a joke, but Adam still has the crease in his forehead. It takes every ounce of restraint Ronan has to keep himself from smoothing it away.

“It appears that way, yes.” Abruptly, Adam pulls the cards back to him and reshuffles, then slides the cards onto his bedside table. “This was dumb. Sorry.”

“It’s not like I believe in them, Parrish,” Ronan says. Adam stands and walks over to the window. “They’re just cards.”

Adam ignores him. The window is creaky, but it opens; he leans out into the summer air. It is quiet between them, but it’s the kind of quiet that makes Ronan feel like he’s in trouble. “I’m not staying in Henrietta forever, Ronan. You know that.”

“Yeah, and?” Ronan leans back, resting on his elbows. 

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Ronan snaps, but his heart is pounding against his ribs.

“Nothing. Jesus,” Adam sighs, exasperated. He steps away from the window and goes to pull a book off of his shelf, but stops in the middle of the room. “For god’s sake, Lynch, why didn’t you tell me the psychics came?” He picks up the stub of a bundle of sage that had been left sitting on a box. 

“What, so you could have tidied up the place? Put out a nice scented candle or something?” The weird atmosphere has dissipated; now, it is Ronan and Adam again, not two people Ronan doesn’t recognize.

“Maybe I didn’t want them here,” Adam says, catching Ronan’s eye over his shoulder. He’s moving slowly around the room, touching his things carefully. Everything Adam owns fits in this one small space. The expression on his face is one Ronan is seeing more and more, but is still woefully unfamiliar with; it’s like seeing a stranger in Adam’s skin. Unreadable. A closed book, a language Ronan can’t speak. 

Ronan sits up, props his elbows on his knees for effect. He is nothing if not dramatic. “Got something to hide, Parrish?” He picks at the leather bands on his wrist, feigning disinterest. “Big secrets?”

“Fuck you.” 

“Touchy subject, huh?” 

Ronan watches Adam’s jaw clench. “You have a lot of nerve talking about secrets, Ronan. Jesus Christ, you even keep secrets from _yourself_.” There is bitterness in Adam’s voice, and Ronan almost can’t stand himself for egging this on. 

“I don’t know what your deal is, man, but you need to calm down.”

Adam’s neck reddens. He inhales sharply. He hasn’t looked Ronan in the eye since he flipped the cards. Something rolls over inside Ronan; maybe he shouldn’t have started this. This is not the normal antagonism between them. 

“I don’t need you here right now,” Adam says after a moment. He turns to face Ronan, but his eyes are on the wall to the left of him. “You can see yourself out.”

“Come on, Adam, I was joking.” He can feel his shoulders sliding up to his ears. If he was a dog, his tail would be between his legs. Shame creeps up on him slowly, then all at once. 

Adam clenches his fists by his side. Ronan can almost see him counting to ten. “No,” he says through gritted teeth. “You weren’t joking, and neither am I. Out.”

Seventeen years of loneliness crashes around inside him. Adam must be able to see how guilty he feels. The floor creaks mournfully as he rocks onto the balls of his feet. After several long moments of uncomfortable silence, Adam doesn’t tell him to stay and Ronan doesn’t ask. Truth be told, he would rather be here than anywhere else right now, shame be damned. 

He can’t bring his eyes up to meet Adam’s, so he lets himself into the hall without bothering to say goodbye. He pounds down the steps and into his car; he catches Adam’s gaze in his rearview mirror as he pulls away. They really don’t know each other at all, do they? How sad is that? Practically attached at the hip for what, sixteen months, and they can’t even speak to each other like normal human beings. 

He needs a drink.

—

Hours later, Ronan is pulling up to Kavinsky’s place, vodka and desperation pooled in his lungs. As if he knew Ronan was coming, Kavinsky is standing in his trashy front yard in a trashy muscle top with a trashy girl at his side. Her eyes are too big for her head, pupils blown wide with whatever drugs she had for lunch. Kavinsky grins, spits at Ronan’s feet. He will eat Ronan alive if he lets him.

“What the fuck have you been waiting for, Lynch?” Kavinsky asks, and it’s somewhere between a growl and a plea. 

Ronan, gulping from the brown-bagged bottle in his hand, keeps walking. He throws Kavinsky’s front door open without asking, because asking would be admitting that Kavinsky is a real person, not just a figment of his imagination. It is easier, in Ronan’s mind, if Kavinsky isn’t totally human. He can hear Kavinsky following him inside, up the stairs to the bedroom Ronan knows will be empty and waiting for him. Girlless, Kavinsky closes the door behind them. He has Ronan pinned to the bed before Ronan even has the chance to cap his bottle; what little alcohol is left spills when it hits the floor. 

A truth: Ronan Lynch hates Joseph Kavinsky.  
A lie: Ronan Lynch hates Joseph Kavinsky.

The ceiling is littered with those little glow in the dark stars, and it strikes Ronan as tragic that someone as low down and dirty as Kavinsky used to be a kid. With that thought, Kavinsky coaxes Ronan’s mouth open, one hand pressing him down into the mattress, the other occupying itself with a belt buckle. He stoops, dipping his head to Ronan’s, passing a pill between their lips. He has his knees on Ronan’s hips; even if he wanted to leave, it would be difficult. And it _hurts_. This, _this_ is what Ronan came for; not the sex, not the drugs, but the permission to hate himself. Here, he is allowed to be ashamed, to do things so bad he won’t be able to bring them to confession. He is allowed to collect little secrets and be absolutely miserable and do whatever he wants to make it worse. Kavinsky's mouth is hot against Ronan’s. A stomach churning thrill runs through him.

“Why are you here this time, Lynch?” Kavinsky asks, eyes heavy. If he wasn’t such a prick, Ronan might think he was handsome. “Dick three loosen your leash a little bit?” 

“You don’t care,” Ronan hisses, because Kavinsky is biting him. “ _Fuck._ ”

Kavinsky’s fingers are in his mouth. He tastes like cigarettes and gasoline and danger. “Give me a sermon, Catholic fag,” he sighs, and now his hands are in his pants. Ronan lifts his shirt above his head and reaches for his own zipper. “Make me holy.”

“Fuck you, Kavinsky,” Ronan grunts. Kavinsky’s pants are around his knees. Ronan lifts himself up on one elbow, reaching for Kavinsky’s waist. The smooth skin of Kavinsky’s back gets goosebumps under Ronan’s palm. He was built for this, for quick fucks and sharing drugs and making Ronan ache. He’s good at making Ronan feel disgusted with himself. He’s a liar, a bastard, a warm body. The drugs are making Ronan fuzzy around the edges, and it’s pleasant, but he doesn’t want pleasant. He wants this to feel like something. “Make it count.”

“Whatever you want, princess,” Kavinsky sighs, stroking himself through his briefs. Tenderly, he runs his hand down Ronan’s stomach; Ronan hates that he likes it. Tongue pressed against Ronan’s teeth, Kavinsky sighs. He pulls back to roll a condom on, then plunges forward again, taking Ronan’s jaw in his hand. Through his haze, it strikes him as funny that Kavinsky would have the foresight to use protection. As soon as the thought crosses his mind, Kavinsky is dragging him upwards, hand around his throat, fire in his eyes. “Come on, baby, let me hurt you.”

When it’s over, Ronan swings his legs over the edge of Kavinsky’s bed and waits for the relief to come, but it doesn’t. He has scratches running the length of his back, bruises on his neck, but it’s not enough. Kavinsky is lounging beside him, chain smoking menthols. He had offered Ronan pain killers, but Ronan didn’t take them. That wasn’t the point of coming over here.

“Where’s your liquor?” Ronan asks, suddenly thirsty. 

“Under the bed,” Kavinsky manages between drags. “What, you can’t be sober for pillow talk?”

Ronan sighs. “You know that’s not how this works.” He gropes around under the bed for a bottle, any bottle. He can’t stand himself. 

Kavinsky blows his smoke at Ronan’s back. “You’re so right. Usually you’re in the bathroom cutting yourself at this point, bitch boy.” 

“I swear to God I’ll kill you one day,” Ronan says, because he doesn’t lie. He swigs from the bottle in his hand.

“You’ll let me fuck you first, though,” Kavinsky laughs, and laughs, and it’s a sick enough sound that Ronan wants to put his fist through the wall. He traces Ronan’s spine with one cold finger. “It’s okay, sweetheart, I’ll keep you bandaged up. Wouldn’t want Dick to know, right?” 

“Shut the fuck up.” Kavinsky slides across the bed and presses himself against Ronan’s back, wrapping his skinny arms around Ronan’s waist. He draws lines on Ronan’s forearm with the ashes of his cigarette. 

“Come to bed, baby, I don’t want to clean up after you. What happens if you bleed out at my house? You wouldn’t want to die _here_ , would you?” Kavinsky bites the juncture of Ronan’s neck and shoulder; Ronan hangs his head. If his legs were working, he’d stand up and leave right now, but he can’t get the motivation flowing. The room reeks of Axe and sex. He’s never been so nauseous. 

“I’m leaving, jackass, get the fuck off of me,” Ronan snaps. To his credit, Kavinsky lets go of him. Ronan stands and strides to the door, taking the bottle of shitty gin with him. It’s going to be a long walk back to the car.

—

Ronan startles awake in the driver’s seat of the BMW, confused and apocalyptic. His head is pounding. He could set the world on fire if he wanted to. Leaning over to look out of the window, he catches sight of his reflection in his side view. He looks empty, and that’s _bad,_ that’s really bad, because he can feel the big nothing welling up in his lungs like water in a drowning. Sometime tonight he must have gone for a drive, because he is pulled onto the right shoulder of some beat up county road. On the other side of the car is a steep drop off into a densely forested valley. The air is blue-green around him. This is the kind of weather that ghosts and witches like; it is dark and damp and everything feels like it has shifted. If he wasn’t so painfully aware of his head, he would think he was dreaming. Beside him, his phone lights up. It informs him cheerily that the current time is 2:27 AM. A groan escapes him as he lets his head fall to the steering wheel. He feels around for his keys and, upon finding them still in the ignition, gives them an experimental twist. The BMW purrs to life, allowing Ronan to breathe a sigh of relief. Bleary eyed, he picks up his phone to look at the notifications.

A dozen missed calls, twice as many texts. He doesn’t care to answer them. 

Instead, he pulls back onto the highway and turns his radio on, letting the bass rattle all of the little, loose things floating around the car. If he was anyone else, staying out all night wouldn’t mean waking up with dozens of notifications, all wondering where he was. But because he’s _Ronan,_ because he has a history, he can barely leave Monmouth without Gansey asking if he’s okay. He drives around for a while, trying to figure out where he is. His phone lights up again, and he checks it, but this time it’s Kavinsky and not Gansey and that is just fucking icing on the cake, isn’t it? He’ll never be able to outrun his mistakes. Probably, he should have just stayed the night with Kavinsky, thrown up a couple of times, and driven back to Monmouth in the morning. Anything would be better than this, being lost and alone in the middle of the night with a roaring hangover and a forest fire wailing inside him. Of course, eventually, his mind wanders back to Adam. Adam, who he barely even recognizes anymore. Adam, who was definitely still wearing the cross Ronan dreamed for him. As soon as he’s at a place wide enough to make a U-turn, he doubles back, taking the road all the way back into Henrietta, where he blows stop signs and runs red lights and revs his engine obnoxiously. He wants to scream; he wants Adam’s hand on the back of his neck, possessive and real and honest. He wants to scrub Kavinsky off of his skin for good. He wants the vicious, biting happiness that comes with freedom and adrenaline. 

His phone lights up on the seat beside him. 

A dozen missed calls, twice as many texts.

He gets out of his car behind St. Agnes’ and walks to the bridge. Stepping over the ledge would be nothing. Despite leaving his phone behind, he can practically see it lighting up on the passenger seat. The bruises on his neck ache; Kavinsky really did a number on him this time. His head throbs with each step he takes. When he reaches the middle of the bridge, he climbs up onto the little barrier and sits for a while, waiting for any kind of motivation to send him one way or another. He still has the cigarette ash marks on his arm, a mockery of the real scars there. Here is another truth: Ronan Lynch is barely a boy right now. Wind could blow right through him, if it tried hard enough. 

He doesn’t remember Noah being with him, but. Here he is. 

“You know,” Noah starts, barely even there. His hand is freezing cold on Ronan’s back. “I used to come up here, too. When I was alive.”

“Hm.” Ronan looks down- how high up is this bridge, anyway?

“Dying doesn’t make things any easier, Ronan. I promise.” 

“I slept with Kavinsky.”

“I know.”

“I cut myself.”

“I know.”

Ronan lets his shoulders slump. All of his strings have been cut. “I’m sorry you’re always finding me like this.” 

“The first time wasn’t your fault,” Noah says. It’s easy to forget that Noah is just seventeen, will _always be_ seventeen. He is wise beyond his years. He kicks Ronan’s foot. “You know all of us love you, right? Even the Fox Way ladies.”

“I don’t deserve it.” He takes a shuddering breath. 

“You do, though. You think you’re so tough, Ronan Lynch, but you dream delicate gifts for your friends and you’re fiercely protective and you’re observant. You know what people need before they ask for it. And-“ Noah cuts himself off. “And you’re not afraid of the truth.”

“Ha.” Ronan Lynch, not afraid of the truth? That’s the best damn joke of the year. Distantly, he wonders if the bottle of gin he’d snatched from K was still in the car, or if he’d managed to drink it all. 

“You’re going to drink yourself to death,” Noah says. 

Ronan, grumbly, indignant. “You sound like Parrish.”

“Can we go home now?”

“I don’t want to talk to Gansey,” Ronan admits. “He’ll flip.”

“Ronan, _please_.”

“You can go home, Noah. I’m fine.” He swings his legs over to the other side of the rail and jumps down, like this is what he’d planned all along, and walks back in towards town. Noah jumps down, but doesn’t follow.

“What am I supposed to do, Ronan?” Noah calls. 

“Leave me alone, that’s what.” He doesn’t turn around to see how sad Noah looks, because he already knows.


	4. Chapter 4

Adam is sitting on the hood of the BMW. Under the dim yellow streetlight, his tanned skin glows golden. Ronan feels like Icarus. 

“Let’s go for a drive,” he suggests, like Ronan has an option, like he could ever say no. 

In the car, Adam calls Gansey, who calls Blue, who tells Gansey to tell Adam to tell Ronan to stop being so insufferable. Guilt shoots through him. Henrietta blurs around them as he guns it through the empty streets, and Adam sighs like he’s been waiting for this. 

“Do you have work tomorrow?” He wants it to sound casual, like it doesn’t bother him either way, but Ronan knows that Adam catches the way he glances over at him. 

“I called in sick.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Ronan says. It comes out more indignant than anything. The truth is, he knows how much Adam is putting on the line by taking a sick day. Gratitude does not come naturally to him, and he does not know how to express it. He blows through a red light, waiting for Adam to respond.

“You’re worrying everyone.” Adam rolls down the window, letting the wind whip into the car and lick at their skin.

“Yeah, well. Get used to it.”

“We are,” Adam says. “That’s the scary part.” Ronan can feel his eyes on him, memorizing the right side of his face. “Ronan-”

“Don’t.” 

“I just want to know what’s going on.” The cracked pavement gives way to chip-and-seal roadway, loose gravel kicking up beneath the BMW. Slowly, the terrain becomes heavier, denser. Virginia switchbacks are enough to make even the best drivers dizzy, but Ronan outruns dizziness, challenging it to keep up with him. He chooses to ignore Adam, instead punching on the radio and turning it up as loud as it will go. He has no destination in mind, but knows they are traveling away from Henrietta and toward the stars. Adam, to his credit, doesn’t question Ronan’s judgement. 

All good things must come to an end. Eventually, Adam turns the radio down and leans his elbow on the center console beside Ronan’s, so close that Ronan can feel his heat. A heavy ache settles into his joints.

“I thought you were going to come back to my place,” Adam says, and there is an apology in there somewhere.

“You made it pretty damn clear that you wanted me gone.”

“I didn’t want you gone, I just needed a second to breathe.” Finally reaching the top of the hill, Ronan puts the car in park and rests his head against the steering wheel. God, he is so fucked. “Where did you go?”

“Don’t ask me that,” Ronan growls, but it comes out sounding pathetic and whiny. Adam knocks their elbows together. 

“Why?”

“Because I would have to lie to you,” Ronan breathes. “And I can’t do that.” The engine ticks rhythmically as it cools, steadying his nerves. Shame burns through him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Adam lean forward, pull his legs up under him. He can’t decide whether or not he wants to be out of the car. On one hand, time with Adam is always a blessing. On the other, it leaves him aching for something terrifyingly real, impossibly real. 

Adam hums discontentedly. “Lying by omission is still lying,” he gripes. “I won’t pretend to understand everything you do, Lynch, but that doesn’t mean I’ll hate you for it.” This, inexplicably, is worse than if Adam _would_ hate him for it. It’s an assumption that whatever Ronan did was bad, destructive. That if Adam gets angry about it, Ronan will just go and do something worse. “Ronan, please just tell me.”

“Kavinsky’s,” he blurts, red hot anger pulsing through him. God, fuck. Jesus Mary. _Fuck._

“You- what?” Adam’s shock is as palpable as Ronan’s guilt. 

“Don’t make me say it again.” He closes his eyes, presses his forehead harder against the steering wheel, as if he can press the misery right out. 

“Okay,” Adam says, so soft that it hurts to hear. The ground could swallow Ronan alive right now, and that would be better than sitting here listening to Adam breathe and praying that he doesn’t ask him anything else.

Ronan groans. There’s a headache trying to wiggle its way between his ears. Beside him, Adam is quiet. Ronan wonders if he’s this quiet on the inside, too. 

—

Ronan Lynch has always had nightmares. They creep in when he is most and least expecting it, when he is ready and when he is thousands of miles away from prepared. Sometimes they spill into his waking life, interrupting whatever minute peace he had managed to pull around himself. Sometimes they are the only reliable thing in his life. What wonderful, terrible creatures he can give life to! What cold comfort the press of a talon to his wrist can bring when compared to the pinching numbness of a razor blade, because there is safety in the word _accident,_ and there is relief in the honesty an accident allows him. 

It doesn’t matter whether the pen or the sword is mightier when you are both at once.

He’s dimly aware that he is asleep. He only wishes that his mind was as aware of this as his body.

—

Adam Parrish’s bed is a wonder in and of itself. Ronan has thoroughly enjoyed sleeping in it, though he’d be hard pressed to say if it’s because it belongs to Adam or because it’s actually comfortable (really, he knows that the mattress is shitty but he’s always been great at lying to himself). 

“Wake up.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’ve got coffee, but if you don’t get out of bed I’ll dump it.”

“That’s just manipulative,” Ronan groans, sitting up despite himself. Squinting into the bright morning light proves to be futile, because there’s barely anything to see in Adam’s shithole apartment anyway. “What’s your fucking problem, man?”

“You scared the hell out of me last night, Lynch,” Adam snaps. “And you want to act like nothing happened. You won’t even talk to me. I think I have the right to be a little angry.”

Grateful to have slept his way out of his funk, Ronan stretches and yawns. “Look, Parrish, I’m here in one piece. What else could you want?”

“Hm, I don’t know, maybe a straight answer, a friend who isn’t a constant disappearing act, and my bed back, for starters,” Adam says dryly, like it’s supposed to be funny even though they both know it isn’t.

“Give me that coffee and we’ll see about ticking one of those off of your list,” Ronan drawls. 

“You have two perfectly good legs. Get up and get it yourself.” Adam is sitting in his tiny kitchenette, effecting disinterest. Ronan sees right through it.

“You think I have good legs, huh?” 

“I think you’re a pain in the ass.”

“Funny, I could say the same about you.” Ronan swings out of bed and walks over to Adam, who seems to be stuck between a grin and a grimace. Ronan hates that they’re pretending things are normal, but he would hate it more if they weren’t. Eventually, he knows he will have to tell Adam. For now, he will settle for strained civility.

“I’m not going to tell Gans, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Adam is saying as Ronan swigs from his cup of coffee. 

“Jesus Mary, Parrish, let a man wake up a little bit before you interrogate him, huh?” He rocks back in his flimsy plastic chair. The hope is to look a little menacing, a little like a delinquent, but Adam doesn’t fall for it. Never has. 

“Do you even care that you had me convinced you were dead in a ditch somewhere?” Adam plants his elbows firmly on the table and draws himself forward, squaring himself up to tear Ronan’s walls down. “Look at me.”

Ronan, who has been studying his hands to look disengaged, snaps his gaze up to Adam. “What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“Just tell me the truth.”

“Ask me a question, then.” 

“What happened to you last night?”

It’s the posing of the question that takes Ronan by surprise; the tenderness softens him significantly. He wants to put his fist through a wall. “I left your place, got drunk, and wound up at K’s.” Adam sighs, both patient and exasperated. Ronan lets his eyes fall back to his hands. “He gave me a pill, we slept together, I took his gin and left.”

“So you… you had sex with Joseph Kavinsky.” 

“Yep.”

“Okay. Okay. Why?”

“Misery loves company, Parrish,” Ronan drawls, dragging his eyes up to meet Adam’s. There is an unwavering moment of tense eye contact as Ronan dares Adam to look away. Ronan raises his eyebrows; in response, Adam furrows his. 

“You’re terrible.” Finally, Adam looks away. “Kavinsky?”

Ronan shrugs. “Not like I have men lining up to court me.”

“You don’t do casual.”

“I don’t do casual.”

“Jesus Christ.” Adam stands, pushing a hand through his hair. “Okay. Okay.”

“Don’t have a fucking conniption,” Ronan says. He rolls his eyes for effect. If he was a smoker, he’d be lighting up right now. “Don’t we have shit to do, anyway?”

“What?”

“The- the attack, or whatever. We still don’t know what that was all about, right? I think that’s a little more important than who I’m fucking.”

“Right. Right.” Out of nowhere, Adam kicks the table. “God, sorry. Sorry.”

“A little unchecked aggression never hurt anybody. Come on. Let’s go to Monmouth.”

In the car, Ronan growls, “Not a _fucking word,_ ” and Adam nods silently.

Ronan Lynch has always had nightmares. Maybe this is just another one.

—

“You let him do this to you?” Adam asks, startling Ronan out of his contemplative silence. Everyone is spread out around Monmouth, reading Gansey’s books and avoiding the oppressive heat. Adam and Ronan are sprawled together on the couch, pressed close enough that Ronan is miserable. Ronan has his legs across Adam’s, just to be a pest, but they’re sitting hip to hip. 

“Do what?”

“This,” Adam says, and touches the bruises that hang around his throat like a noose. Ronan’s breath catches in his chest. Adam’s fingertips ghost across his skin, skidding to a stop at his jugular. “God, you look like shit.”

“Yeah,” Ronan breathes, because Adam is looking at his mouth and he wants to push him away or pull him closer or just disappear. Closeness has never been a problem with Ronan until recently. But this. This lazy urgency that Ronan feels, the paralyzing restlessness that comes with Adam’s hands on his skin, Adam’s eyes on his lips, Adam’s breath on his cheek- he wants more or he wants none of it. 

“Why him?”

What Ronan won’t say is _because he doesn’t care about me_. He doesn’t say _he’s not gentle_. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Adam’s fingers skate back to the bruise. 

“Hm.” Ronan turns back to his book, hoping that he doesn’t look as desperate as he feels, and Adam pulls away. “You’re such a goddamn liar.”

When they had arrived at Monmouth, Gansey took one look at Ronan and assumed he’d gotten in a fight, which was close enough to the truth that Ronan let him run with it. Adam didn’t say anything, and Noah just blinked himself away. Gansey didn’t ask anymore questions, which meant that Ronan was in the clear, at least for now. As long as Adam doesn’t blow his fucking cover. 

Chainsaw chirrups from her position on the pool table, wanting attention and feeling neglected. “Shut up, bird,” Ronan tells her, but it’s loving, as everything is with his pet. “Hey, Gans, you got anything yet?”

Gansey, from the kitchen-bathroom, calls, “Nothing useful! Just a bunch of stuff about Irish women milking deer!”

“Irish women milking deer?” Adam asks. “Can deer even be milked?”

“I don’t think so,” Ronan replies, because apparently they are back to normal. “Are we just looking at European shit, Gansey?”

“For now, yes!” Gansey comes into the living room, takes in Adam and Ronan’s position, and raises his eyebrows. Rather than asking anything, he takes a long sip out of his mug and waits for one of them to move. When neither of them do, he continues his explanation. “I know it’s ridiculously normative, but seeing as Henrietta is heavily rooted in the western Euro tradition, we’re going to stick with English, Welsh, and Celtic mythology.”

“Okay. Okay.” Adam stands, letting Ronan’s legs fall to the floor.

“And you’re absolutely _positive_ that it wasn’t Cabeswater?” Gansey asks, even though he’s already asked this about a thousand times. 

“ _Yes,_ ” Adam snaps, because he’s already answered this about a thousand times. 

Ronan lets his eyes drift over the page, choosing not to participate. He doesn’t expect to find anything, but continues reading anyway. It’s vaguely interesting, at least. Adam and Gansey go over the details again while Ronan reads, talking each other in circles. Inevitably, Adam gets tired of Gansey’s need for 100% clarity and stomps outside to get some air, leaving Ronan alone to deal with Dick. 

“I just don’t get it,” Gansey says, exasperated. “If it wasn’t Cabeswater, what was it? And why the bees?”

“Well,” Ronan starts, looking up from his book. “I think the bees were for you, Dick.”

Gansey’s face tightens slightly. “Oh,” he says. “Well. I suppose that would have taken care of me quite well.”

“You’re not wrong.”

Gansey, clearly uncomfortable with his own mortality, takes this opportunity to change the subject. “Did something happen with you guys last night?”

“Who, me and Adam?”

“Yeah, Lynch. Who else?” Gansey says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like it’s always been Ronan and Adam, like there’s never been anything to get in the way of that. 

“No, Gans, nothing happened between me and Adam last night. Why do you ask, oh nosey one?”

Gansey sits up taller and purses his lips. “I’d like you to know that I don’t appreciate your flippance,” he chides. “And you two just seem different. I don’t know.”

“Sounds like you want something to have happened,” Ronan snaps, mostly to make Gansey uncomfortable, but partly because he’s feeling backed into a corner.

Gansey, who is as diplomatic as he is handsome, balks. “Why would I want you guys to fight? You’re my best friends.”

“You thought we _fought_?” Something akin to relief washes over him. 

“It’s not unlike you to fight with people, Ronan,” Gansey reminds him. The air around them softens. 

Ronan takes a breath, then another. This is fine. Things are fine. 

—

Things, surprisingly, are not fine. 

A few days later, Ronan finds himself slipping out of Monmouth quietly, avoiding all the creaky floorboards he would ordinarily throttle just to scare Gansey. Nighttime swallows him whole as he escapes the stifling apartment into the cool darkness. He leaves Chainsaw behind. Untethered, he drifts down the street, waiting for the little flame of feeling to light up inside him again. Restlessness lifts his melancholy bones to the sky. It is during times like these, when he can’t muster up the motivation to sleep, when the air is just so, when his head feels loose on his shoulders, that he wants God the most. 

A good fist to the face would do just as well, though.

His feet drag him down the pavement, damp with anticipation of rain. If he were K, he’d be setting shit on fire right now, popping pills and reeking of destruction. Alas, he is not Kavinsky, so he settles for a small wave of anarchy. A dash of chaos. Just kicking over mailboxes and vandalizing the _Welcome to Henrietta!_ sign. The further he gets from Monmouth, the more wild he feels, like his melancholic bones are not untethered, but _free,_ not drifting but flying. Oh, so tonight is a _night._ Apocalyptic, he races his own shadow to the river and pitches himself into the water, biting back the shout that’s trying to escape his lungs. Victory, victory, victory pulses through him, and there it is, the boundless joy. Reckless and hurtling into infinity. Freedom rips a hole in his chest. This is a _night,_ this is the beginning of infinity. Possibility spreads before him as he floats on his back, far enough from the last streetlight that he can see the stars as well as they can see him. God, Gansey will call him crazy in the morning when he turns up soaked and glorious, but he doesn’t care. Is this what people like Gansey feel all the time? Is this how Gansey feels when they step into Cabeswater, when he uncovers lost relics, when he has all of his friends collected and beautiful in one place? 

“What the hell are you doing?” Adam startles Ronan, but of course he’s welcome, he’s always welcome.

“Floating,” Ronan says, because it’s the truth. 

Adam slides out of his pajama pants and folds them carefully in the grass, taking care to keep them out of the mud at the bank. “Are you okay?”

“God, Parrish, I’m fucking fantastic,” he says, honestly. He doesn’t have to look to know that Adam is wading in beside him.

“You know,” Adam says, much closer than he was before. “What’s crazy- what’s crazy is that I actually believe you.” Ronan listens to him dunk, then come up to float on his back. “Jesus Christ, the water’s cold.”

“You didn’t have to get in,” Ronan reminds him. “That’s on you, man.”

Adam sighs. “It’s kind of nice. It’s just cold.” His arm bumps against Ronan’s. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Nah.” A comet streaks across the sky. “Shooting star. Make a wish.”

“Okay,” Adam concedes, linking his elbow with Ronan’s. “Okay, I made mine.”

“Me too.” They are quiet for a moment. “How’d you know where I was?”

Ronan feels Adam shrug rather than sees it. “Just had a feeling. How’d you decide to come down here?”

“Just had a feeling.”

“You’re really something, Ronan Lynch,” Adam says, and Ronan can hear the smile in his voice. Together, they float on, watching the stars.

For the first time in a long time, Ronan feels awake.

“Adam, look.” In a field across the left bank, a white stag stands alone. Stoic and regal, he practically glows under the moon, and it is clear that he is watching them. Carefully, Ronan lets his legs sink to the river bottom and stands, and Adam does the same. 

“Holy shit,” Adam breathes. The stag blows, rocking his head from side to side. “What does it mean?”

“That you have a thing about deer,” Ronan quips. 

“Not funny.” With one last huff, the stag turns its back on the boys and gallops away. “Should we- we should follow it, right?”

“I don’t know, man!” A sudden sense of urgency falls over them as Adam scrambles out of the river and pulls his pants and shoes on.

“Come on, come on!” Ronan, who had jumped into the river fully clothed, flies out of the water after Adam, who is racing through the field with more purpose than Ronan has ever seen one man wear. As they run, Ronan shakes himself, because he is alive, _awake_. These are the things of his dreams, spilling into reality without needing to be pulled out! Fireflies light up around them, and Ronan so badly wants to stop and catch them, to remember this feeling, but Adam is tearing through the waist high grass, calling for Ronan to follow him. The stag is still up ahead of them, which makes Ronan wonder if it is running away or leading them somewhere. This can’t be a Glendower thing, right? Gansey would have to be there. If it had anything to do with Glendower, Gansey would be there. The universe isn’t cruel enough to let Glendower be found without his gift around. 

Still, magic is in the air and Ronan can’t help the thrill that runs through him as the deer turns into a thicket of brush. Gradually, the fireflies grow fewer and further between as they wade through the briars, until eventually their only source of light is the thin moonlight filtering through the spindly branches of ivy choked trees. The stag turns his head as if to make sure the boys are still behind him, his great antlers catching glimpses of moonlight. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it’s gone, just like Noah. And it’s not that Ronan blinked and the deer was gone- it’s more like he can’t remember seeing it leave, as if the seconds between _here_ and _gone_ had been stitched together into one moment. Adam turns to him, stuck between a question and an answer. Ronan’s eyes go immediately to his throat, searching for the thin silver chain he dreamed for him, and yes, there it is, there is the little cross right above his heart. 

“Well,” Adam starts. “I don’t- what now?”

Ronan shrugs. “You have work tomorrow?”

“Shop’s closed on Sundays.”

“Then we look for whatever we were brought here for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a cliffhanger, eh?


	5. Chapter 5

After rooting around thoroughly in the dark and coming up with nothing, Adam and Ronan leave the little forest. The sun is just peeking over the rim of Henrietta, bruising the sky dusty purple and blue. As they trek across the field back into real life, Ronan tries to hold onto the feeling of _more_ that had crept up his spine. _God, if you are listening, let me keep this, let me have this, please please please._ Gone is the restlessness, replaced with a sense of purpose. Adam, pensive, has said barely a word. Without talking about it, they end up at St. Agnes, and because he can, Ronan shows Adam how to climb out onto the roof. 

“How’d you figure this out?” Adam asks, and there is laughter in his voice. 

“There are plenty of secrets to be discovered when you sneak out of Sunday school,” Ronan says, coming to sit beside Adam. From their perch, they can see Henrietta laid out before them, stretching her arms and waking softly. 

“Really, are you okay?”

“I am, Adam, I am.” He wants to say _for now,_ but he can’t. “I’m awake.”

Adam nods sagely. “I know what you mean.”

They watch the sunrise in silence, shoulder to shoulder on the old roof. As the air warms around them, Adam warms too, resting his head against Ronan and leaning into his side. 

“Ronan,” he says, so soft that he almost misses it. 

“Hmm?” Ronan looks down at Adam, but he is watching the skyline. A flock of ravens bursts onto the horizon, chaotic and free. 

“Nothing,” Adam sighs, but he means _nothing I can tell you._

When they finally go back inside, the sun is high in the sky and Ronan is a dead man walking. Sleep, for once, is begging him to come to bed. He collapses into Adam’s mattress without asking, and Adam follows suit, back to Ronan, curled tightly into himself.

Ronan has to wait for his heart to slow down before he can close his eyes for more than two seconds at a time.

—

That evening, Ronan, Adam, Gansey, Noah, and Blue (much to Ronan’s dismay) hike out to the little forest. It wasn’t hard to find; the difficulty came in convincing himself that he hadn’t dreamed everything. Everyone is a little on edge, expecting nothing and fearing the worst, like maybe their discovery last night was a fluke or a demon but nothing in between. Excitement and dread ricochet around them. The forest, though, has the same magnetic pull of Cabeswater, the same meant-to-be feeling. The closer they get, the harder it is to deny their curiosity. 

“ _Oh,_ ” Noah sighs as they step into the copse of trees. “Wicked.”

“Oh, Noah,” Blue says, sucking in a surprised breath, because true color is returning to Noah’s skin, slowly and then all at once. It’s the happiest Ronan has ever seen him. Goosebumps raise on Ronan’s arms and that old reckless joy swells in his chest, bubbling out in fits of shocked laughter. They keep walking until they are in a small clearing and Noah is fully saturated, in living color. 

“Holy shit!” Gansey cries, scooping Noah to his chest. “Holy shit, Noah!” He’s solid, whole against Gansey’s obnoxious pink polo. Blue is next, crowding around behind Noah, then Adam, who is slow to show affection, and finally Ronan, wrapping his arms around the only real things in his life. Noah looks _alive_ again. Like Ronan imagined he’d look, if he really went to school with them, if he was someone he could ditch class with. Someone is laughing, and then all of them are, because this is _Noah,_ Noah, Noah, more than he’s ever been before. This is their friend, allowed to take living breaths again. 

And yet. 

Something keeps Ronan from giving himself over to the overwhelming happiness of the moment. As the group splits from their embrace, Ronan steps back, wary. The light has gone funny, dimmer and grayer than before, and despite the oppressive heat of the day, it is cooling rapidly in the little forest. Adam is just stepping towards him when the trees clench inward and the ground presses up into the arches of his feet, the force of it sending them quickly to the forest floor. 

“Stay down!” Gansey orders, and because he is their king, they all listen. The world shudders and shakes and the air shimmers around them, and all Ronan can think is _Adam, Adam, Adam,_ but he can’t get his bearings enough to find him. The noise is deafening, impossible to pinpoint and seemingly endless. Terror grips Ronan around the throat and holds him there, claps his hands over his ears, squeezes his lungs until he thinks they might burst. 

Then, just as suddenly as it started, everything stops. The forest goes eerily silent. 

Blue stands first. “Noah?”

Next to stand is Adam, wobbly on his feet. Ronan and Gansey stand as one. Goosebumps raise on Ronan’s skin once more. 

“Jesus fucking Mary,” Ronan breathes, turning in a slow circle. Carved into every tree surrounding them, into the dirt beneath their feet, are the words _memento mori_ over and over. In the middle of the clearing, Noah is standing suspended in time, flinching away from an invisible skateboard. 

The lazy sense of dread that had been slowly building in Ronan hits him all at once. 

“We have to do something,” Blue cries, rushing to Noah’s side. She reaches for him, but her hand slips through his Aglionby sweater. The sound that rips through her is almost inhuman, and then Noah is dying again, but sped up enough that he _keeps dying,_ again and again and again and again, each time howling, bleeding as his face crumbles. 

Before he knows it, Ronan is beside Noah, heart hammering against his ribs. “What can we even do?” He asks no one in particular, scrambling to step between Noah and his ghostly assailant. The attack passes through him, sharp as a hunting knife. Pain slices across his body, pulsing as he gasps for breath. There is no blood shed while Ronan dies. He is hit across the head by an unseen force, brought to his knees before his friends. The last thing he sees before collapsing into darkness is _memento mori_ scrawled into the air above him as he is swallowed whole. 

—

 _Remember the dead._

“I should have known,” Gansey groans, head between his knees. “White stags are messengers from the spirit realm.” Anxiety has been rippling through him since the moment they stepped foot into the little forest, building inside of him until its culmination in this moment. Ronan isn’t supposed to die. Ronan is supposed to be the sturdy one, the rock, the protector. But who protects the protector?

Noah, who has died more times than he can count, wrings his hands and pulls his hair and bites his nails and scratches at his skin, waiting for the nurse to come out and tell them that Ronan would be okay. Noah has grown used to dying. Ronan has not. 

The first time is always the hardest. 

“Shit!” Gansey snaps, standing abruptly. “God _damn_ it.” In a rare spurt of rage, he kicks his chair over, chest heaving. And Adam, who is accustomed to the violence (though not from Gansey) shifts his attention to Blue, who has been flipping through a glossy magazine about dieting and rolling her eyes but puts her hand on Gansey’s arm without even looking up. A quiet thrill runs through Adam; he has caught them in the act, he knows that they are more in tune with one another than he will ever be with anyone. 

Blue, who has been consumed with fear for her friends far too many times for her young age, tucks her fingers into the bend of Gansey’s elbow. Gansey scrubs a hand over his face as Blue stands and folds herself into his side, hoping for comfort and expecting guilt. Gansey smooths her hair down. A hot tear slips down her nose and her exhausted body trembles, and she knows that Adam is watching them and feels terrible but she needs this, she _needs_ this. 

Adam, though he doesn’t want to, understands. 

Gansey, shocked at Blue’s affection but grateful for the chance to touch her, wraps his arms around her slight frame and presses his cheek into the top of her head. 

Watching Ronan being loaded into an ambulance in the middle of a wheat field hadn’t been what Noah expected out of the night. In fact, he’d thought that they would go to the little forest and poke around a little bit with Gansey’s meters and go home empty handed but satisfied. He’d thought that it would be an easy night, that the universe would gift them with one night of terror-free fun. 

Adam, whose life had been streaked with fear since birth, had wanted nothing more than answers. He could handle the little worries, the manageable terror of his own feelings. He wanted to know what the deer meant. He wanted to know what had attacked him. What he did not want was for his best friend to be killed by a stupid little forest. This was a horror he had never seen before; Ronan, not bleeding, but being beaten to death in the same manner that Niall Lynch was. _Remember the dead,_ the trees had cried. 

The EMTs would never be able to forget. A young man, still warm, almost still breathing. Beaten, but not bruised. They’d shocked him back to life twice in the ambulance, and each time they did, the earth beneath them shuddered. Each streetlight they passed under blinked out. Although the EMTs in the back could not see it, the driver watched as ravens fell from the sky. Everything was changing, and they did not know why. “I’ve heard,” one whispered to the other, over the boy who was finally blinking his ice blue eyes up at them. “That strange things happen in Henrietta.” And the boy took off his oxygen mask to hiss “Sir, I am the strange thing that happened in Henrietta,” before promptly passing out. 

Remember the dead. As if that was ever a problem for Ronan. 

—

When Ronan officially wakes up, his first word is “Matthew.”

“Is _fine,_ ” Declan assures him from the doorway. “We need to talk about what happened.”

His friends are not with him. 

“Where are they?” Ronan rasps, uncomfortable under Declan’s gaze. 

“At Gansey’s place.” Declan shuts the door and moves to stand beside Ronan’s bed. His eyes are bloodshot. “I told them to go home and rest. It’s been-“ he scrubs his face, and Ronan takes note of the stubble on his jaw. “It’s been two days.”

“Sign me out. I’m ready to leave.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is for you,” Ronan snaps. 

“Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t _know_ what happened.” He scratches at the IV in his hand. With a start, it occurs to him that he may have been dreaming for two days straight. “Seriously, Declan, get me out. I can’t be stuck in here.”

“You haven’t been,” Declan says. “Dreaming, I mean. You haven’t pulled anything out.”

“That doesn’t mean I won’t.” He scratches harder at the IV, terribly itchy and desperately restless. 

“I don’t think you’re ready-“

“Do you need me to prove it?” Ronan snaps, anticipating a fight. “I’ll beat your ass, Declan, you know I will.”

With a heavy sigh, Declan throws himself down into the chair at Ronan’s bedside. “You’re such an ass.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Did it really- was it- when you-“

“When I _died,_ ” Ronan supplies helpfully, wanting to try the words on for size. He can’t decide whether or not he likes them. 

“Yes,” Declan says, focusing on the ceiling. “Was it like-“

“Dad?” Declan’s eyes snap back to him, less politician, more scared older brother. “Yeah.”

“Jesus.”

“God has a really sick fucking sense of humor,” he spits. “Remember the dead. Like I could ever fucking forget.”

“I’ll…” He trails off, either looking for the words or looking for the courage to say them. “I’ll get you checked out. I’m sure you’re ready to be home.”

“Thanks,” Ronan says, and for the first time in a long time, he means it. 

—

The ride back to Monmouth is more than awkward. Declan paid handsomely to get Ronan out of the hospital so early, insisting that they had a family physician to check in when necessary. The lie made Ronan a little sick to his stomach, but he was grateful nonetheless. Ronan loves his brother, but he has grown used to throwing punches in place of having conversation, and Declan only knows how to talk to politicians and crooks.

“Ronan,” Declan starts as they’re climbing out of his Lincoln into the gravel parking lot at Monmouth. “Don’t you _dare_ die again.”

“No guarantees,” Ronan grunts, letting Declan lead him up the stairs. Ordinarily, he would shrug Declan’s hand off of his shoulder and march ahead of him, but today he allows it. “Tell Matthew to call me.”

“Got it. Tell Gansey to come visit me in D.C.”

“Whatever.” Declan squeezes his shoulder and turns to go back to his car, leaving Ronan to walk inside by himself. 

—

“You know,” Ronan starts, thoroughly exhausted. “I always thought that I’d be dead by seventeen.”

From the floor beside him, Adam and Gansey groan “Same,” in unison. They’ve been laid out together watching the shadows shift across the ceiling for upwards of an hour now. Blue had to leave for a shift at Nino’s and Noah had followed her out sulkily. 

“I didn’t want to bring this up while you were in the hospital,” Gansey murmurs. Ronan turns his head to Adam, who is at his left, for any indication of what news Gans has to break. He just shrugs as if to say _I’m as clueless as you, man._ “Of course, you didn’t really give me the chance to.”

“Yeah, whatever. I should still be laid up, blah blah blah-“

“Ronan.” 

“Jesus, Dick, lighten up.” Adam elbows him in the side.   
“White stags are messengers from the dead,” Gansey blurts. “I- this is a reach, but I think it could have been your dad.”

“Absolutely not.” Ronan rolls away from him, wincing at the dull ache in his head. Briefly, his vision blinks out and he can hear the roar of his own pulse. Despite the rush, he pushes himself up from the dusty floor and sways on his feet. In an instant, Adam is beside him. “Stop-” Ronan snaps when Adam tries to steady him, hand at his waist. “I’m not dying. I think I can handle standing up by myself.”

“Listen, Ronan, this is big. I really do think-”

“No,” Ronan cuts Gansey off. “Do _not_ try to tell me that this was my father.”

“It’s just the circumstances…”

“Exactly,” he growls. Why can’t Gansey ever get anything through his thick skull? “My dad would _never_ put me through his death again. So stop trying to convince me he would, okay? Just stop.”

Adam’s hand drops from where it has been hovering nervously at his waist, and just as Gansey starts to speak again, Adam interjects. “Gansey, I think Ronan’s right.”

Gansey visibly deflates, but comes to stand with them. “Tell me how.”

And it wasn’t that Gansey was being a dick; he needed Adam’s opinion to form a new theory. He wasn’t trying to be condescending. It just came out like that. Even still, Ronan watched Adam’s jaw clench in irritation at Gansey’s doubt.

“This isn’t an isolated incident, Gans. Weird stuff has been happening since- well, basically since we got out of school. Ronan’s been having trouble sleeping, Noah’s been glitching. And why would his dad hijack my apartment?” Adam asks. “There was a deer there, too.”

“Yeah,” Ronan says feebly, knowing he has nothing other than indignance to back Adam up. 

“Kerah,” Chainsaw offers, hopping out from under the pool table.

“Okay,” Gansey concedes. He moves to the kitchen and Ronan and Adam follow him obediently. “Okay. Let’s make a list.”

Together, they come up with a fairly comprehensive list of all the weird shit that has happened since the end of the school year. Eventually, they come to the conclusion that yes, something has been trying to contact them, and _yes,_ it is probably something not great. Or someone. They’re still a little fuzzy on the details, and Gansey insists that the Fox Way ladies will be able to help (even though they swear up and down that they don’t deal in specifics). The whole thing is making Ronan jittery, but it’s not until much later that he finally lets himself collapse into himself and get bummed out about it. Especially the dying part. That really gets him going.

A truth: Ronan is happy to be alive.

A lie: Ronan is happy to be alive.

Things have gone wobbly for Ronan. He has a very distinct memory of dying, and of finally waking up, but the rest is just snippets and feelings more than anything. He remembers the terribleness of it, of himself. For one very, very small moment, right as his lungs were collapsing, he was relieved. The pine needles that seemed to crush upwards into his spine didn’t even bother him; the abject terror was replaced with a sense of rightness. Dying was a gift for just a few seconds, and then it was all over.

What scares him most is that after dying, he can’t remember anything but inky blackness and the sense that there was nothing waiting for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY FOR THE WAIT! with junior year wrapping up, my life was pretty crazy. but here's an (albeit short) update!

**Author's Note:**

> perhaps someday we will look back upon these things with joy
> 
> feel free to drop me a message on tumblr @paast-lives


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